Harry Potter and the Seventh Horcrux
by U-No-Poo
Summary: PostHBP. This time everyone is expendable. This time there is no Dumbledore. This time there is only one hope. This time only one will survive. Harry Potter and the Seventh Horcrux. All bets are off.
1. Chapter 1

Harry Potter and the Seventh Horcrux

By, U-No-Poo

"The only thing that makes life possible is permanent,

intolerable uncertainty; not knowing what comes next."

- Ursula K. LeGuin

**Chapter One: Making the Choice**

_The Dursley Family Automobile_

_12:04 pm_

It was the mere beginning of yet another summer for those who lived in England. For muggles it was the beginning term of laziness and hanging with friends and family. For wizards it was just another day in a world of confusion, chaos and unavoidable fear. But for one boy, who was raised in the muggle world but belonged in the magical one, it was the beginning of the end. The end of either good or evil, and what made this one lone boy even more special, is that in the end it would come down to him to decide which would reign supreme over this world. And it would prove to be a more difficult choice than anyone, including him, would ever suspect.

This unique boy was the only raven haired member of a quartet currently traveling down the road that led away from the train station that housed the famous Platform 9 ¾. In the drivers seat was stationed a man so beefy that even though his seat was pushed all the way back, his gut was still hanging onto more of the steering wheel than his own hands. Beside him sat a pale and terribly thin woman who was nervously nipping at her right fingernails, every once in a while glancing to check on the two boys seated behind her.

The young boy on the right, who was quite obviously the obese man's son, was chewing on a white chocolate bar that had already begun to melt from the warmth of the midday sun. Beside him sat the heroic Boy-Who-Lived, Harry Potter. His silent sighs could only be detected by the heavy falling of his chest, as it rose only to collapse after a pause that seemed to carry the sorrow of the entire world.

Harry was leaning his head against the window, praying to any and all deity's he could think of, for the sun to stop sending such massive waves of heat that seemed to fry the entire earth. It was after this single thought that his wish seemed to be granted, something that never seemed to happen to Harry Potter. The shade of some tree or building seemed to have blanketed the car from the pulsating heat. Harry smiled contentedly as the first sign of good fortune for his summer when he opened his eyes to look out across the bridge they were currently climbing and his heart sank.

It seemed that not only was his car covered in shade but most of the massive bridge as well. It was when he saw the end of the shade flicker that he made a horrifying connection.

_It isn't shade, it's a shadow, _he thought quickly_, and it's flapping!_

Harry rolled down his window frantically and leaned his head out to look directly up. Sure enough the creature that had cast the shadow was indeed flapping its wings from directly above them. However, what he had assumed might be a hippogriff or a thestral, was not even close to the creature that was currently hovering a hundred feet above them.

The hard green scales that bubbled across the sides of the animal looked more like stones and cast no reflection. The venomous yellow that lined the underbelly of the horrifying monster looked much fleshier than its sides and made an obvious display of the gigantic muscles that they were restraining. It was the wings more than razor sharp and still visible fang like teeth that made the beast's identity even more obvious. The fifty to seventy five foot wing span could belong to no other creature, muggle or magical, than that of a dragon. The fact that there was a black robed, white masked wizard riding the beast made it even more dangerous to Harry.

His Aunt and Cousin who had started at his sudden movement had frightened Vernon so much that he swerved before gaining control of the wheel enough to be able to start his rant against his nephew.

"BOY!" he blared at the top of his lungs, the sound echoing painfully in the small car, "GET YOUR HEAD BACK IN HERE! I'LL NOT HAVE YOUR HEAD BASHED IN BY ANOTHER CAR ONLY TO BE CURSED BY THOSE WRETCHED FREAKS FROM BACK AT THE STATION!"

Harry's head quickly darted back inside the car, but not because of what his uncle had threatened, but because of the danger that was currently flying directly above them.

"You have to drive faster!" Harry said, still dazed from the appearance of the massive creature above them.

"HOW DARE YOU!" his aunt hissed angrily, all nervousness forgotten, "SIT BACK AND SHUT UP! I WILL NOT HAVE YOU ORDERING YOUR UNCLE AROUND AND GETTING HIM FINED!"

Harry knew that this was getting him no where and was quickly thinking about the situation. His wand and his trunk were locked in the boot of the car along with any other magical devises that could aid in this situation. The sound of honking and swerving tires announced that Harry wasn't the only one to have spotted the terrifying sight.

"What is wrong with people today, it's like they've all gone mad!" his uncle exclaimed looking at the cars and the panicked people inside them.

"Or they saw a dragon", Harry mumbled to himself, still looking around the car for anything helpful. _If only Uncle Vernon hadn't forced me to let Hedwig fly back to Privet Drive before we left I could have sent a message to the Order!_ he thought, silently cursing his Aunt and Uncle's hatred of all magical things.

Harry saw no other alternative but to try again to get his Uncle to do something to get away from the dragon that was most obviously looking for them, before he was forced to take drastic measures.

"Uncle Vernon" Harry started, "please listen to me - ", an unexpected punch to the gut from his cousin prevented him from continuing.

"Mum told you to shut up, so SHUT UP!"

Harry groaned in response to the punch, clutching his stomach, but it was drowned out by a deafening roar that seemed to shake the bridge below them.

It appeared that they had now reached the top of the bridge unlike the other cars on the road that had slowed, and in some cases turned in the opposite direction going against traffic. This left Harry and his relatives alone and an easy target.

The angry emission from the dragon above had definitely gotten the attention of his family - Petunia was screaming her head off while Dudley had given away into a dead faint. Vernon, who hadn't spotted the dragon yet, became flustered and spoke with an edge of hysteria.

"PETUNIA!" he shrieked, "PETUNIA? What is it? What's out there? What's happening?"

Petunia's barely audible reply was drowned out by a second growl. Harry turned to look out the rear window and didn't even get a chance to say one word of warning before a torrent of fire attacked the road a few feet behind them. The force of the explosion caused the car to flip end over front and land on the hood of the car.

Harry was now lying flat against the ceiling, listening to the screeching sound of the metal scraping down the slant of the bridge slowly losing momentum. The car was still spinning during the descent causing broken glass from the crunched car and snapped off metal parts to swirl along with the passengers inside. Harry was still conscious enough to shield his eyes from the flying glass with his right hand. His left didn't seem to be moving from where his body was trapping it down with its weight.

After what felt like hours of spinning, screaming and scrapping, but what was in reality only a few moments, the onslaught stopped. Although he was still trembling Harry cautiously opened his eyes and surveyed the damage. His right hand had several slits of glass that were embedded in it. His body ached and his leg was warped into an impossible angle, showing that it was undoubtedly broken. Harry wasn't sure it was a good or a bad thing that he couldn't feel the pain from the leg yet, but for the moment he was willing to except it as a plus. Slowly he pulled his left arm free and laid himself on his back.

It was when he realized that he was the only one still audibly breathing that he glanced around to the other occupants of the car. Dudley was laying half sideways out of the hole where his door used to be located. His aunt was in a most uncomfortable looking ball with her knees on the torn head rest. Harry sighed silently seeing short breathing coming from the pair, and he simply chose not to think about the blood that tainted the car.

His uncle he quickly realized was not in the car. Although he held no love for the man, he was still his uncle and Harry began trying to lift himself up to find him. He had no more than lifted himself to a crawling position when he heard faint footsteps approaching. His first thought was that it was an emergency crew. But he swallowed his shout for help as he saw the edge of a cape drape onto the ground.

_That_, Harry thought, _Is definitely _not_ a Muggle physician._

Trying not to make any noise Harry lowered his head to see out the back window and saw a man in a black cape, wand in hand, standing over his uncle's bloody body. Vernon was on the road about fifty feet behind the car, giving short ragged breaths. The man in the cloak waited a few moments before a single green curse emitted from the wand quickly putting an end to his Uncle's short breaths and his life altogether.

Harry's head jumped up so fast at the sight of the curse that his head thumped hard against the floor of the car, causing it to groan in protest. The man with the wand turned in an instant and began walking towards the car. Harry looked around the car for a weapon, anything to defend himself with. He thought briefly about making a run for the keys and then to the locked trunk but upon further inspection he saw that the keys had broken off in the ignition and there was no way to open the boot.

What Harry did find though was a long, jagged piece of glass, which he quickly grabbed. Ignoring the cuts that he was getting for holding the shard he quickly raised it, poised to strike at the man who had walked to his side of the car. The knee of the man bent and soon Harry saw his assailants face and swung hard at it with the glass.

The man seemed to almost be expecting the attack and had a hand ready to grab Harry's arm. Instead of trying to grab the glass with his other hand, the attacker used it to haul Harry out of the car in one fluid motion.

After the initial shock of the man's actions, Harry quickly remembered that he was still armed with the glass and swung again. This time the assailant knocked the glass from Harry with his left hand and brought his right hand around to grab Harry throat hard and hold him against the side of the car.

"Good Morning, Potter," said a familiarly cold voice.

Using his free hand the Death Eater ripped off his mask and grinned maliciously at Harry's struggling form.

"Fenrir!" gasped Harry.

This was the same werewolf that had bitten Remus Lupin when he was just a boy and condemned him to a life of horror. This was the same werewolf who had urged Draco Malfoy to kill Dumbledore. This was the same werewolf who inspired fear in all parents in the Wizarding world because his favorite victims were always children. This was the same werewolf that now held Harry's life in his hands.

"I'm so happy I could be the one to do this, Potter," he growled menacingly, "Poor little Remus will probably cry himself to death when he sees your body once I'm done with you."

With inhuman strength he lifted Harry off the ground and threw him twenty feet. Harry landed harshly on his already injured leg and let out a small scream of pain. Harry felt himself being lifted by the throat again and opened his eyes to see Fenrir practically purring.

"I was the one who turned him" he boasted to Harry, "did you know that? I heard he nearly committed suicide after the first full moon. Do you think he'll try to end it all again?"

Fenrir pushed Harry roughly against the side of the bridge and bent him backwards so that his upper body was hanging over the side.

"Well? Do you?" the werewolf asked vindictively, "Do you think he'll just jump off the side of this very bridge? Stand where you are now, weeping and slobbering like a blustering child and then jump?"

Fenrir pulled Harry off the side of the bridge and flung him onto the ground at his feet before adding, "How does it feel to know it would be all your fault?"

Fenrir bent down to Harry's level and jerked his head up by the hair.

"Aw, poor little defenseless Harry Potter" mocked Fenrir. "No more Dumbledore to save you. No more parents to sacrifice themselves for you. No more godfathers to get in the way. No, boy, it's just me and you now."

Fenrir reared his leg back and released it against Harry's side with all his strength, catapulting Harry to the opposite side of the bridge. Harry landed on the overturned car and the momentum carried him onto the other side of the car. Coughing blood, Harry looked around for some kind of weapon to defend himself with. Prophecy or not, if Harry took anymore blows from the werewolf he wouldn't be alive enough to fight anyone.

The all too familiar feeling of imminent death began to seep into his mind and replace the pain of the beatings he was receiving.

Harry tried to look around all the sides of the car in an effort to spot where the next attack might come from. Harry heard Fenrir shout in pure unadulterated fury and wondered what Harry had done to upset him further. Then Harry heard Fenrir shriek in pain and a torrent of blood flew over the top of his head and splattered the wall behind him.

_What the hell was he doing?_ Harry asked himself_, Surely he wasn't blooding himself up! So that must mean…_

Harry raised himself up on his good leg just enough to see over the car. Sure enough there a second cloaked figure besides Fenrir Greyback. At first Harry assumed that the newcomer was a second Death Eater. But that was before he saw the long blade slash out threateningly towards the werewolf. The Newcomer's face was hidden behind a black hood but Harry guessed from his solid but thin build that he was a man.

The werewolf lunged at the Newcomer, mouth open wide, and within seconds both men were struggling against each other on the ground. Fenrir used his inhuman strength to try to pin the Newcomer down. The Newcomer instead used his flexibility to worm his way out of each stronghold. Finally the werewolf managed to pin the Newcomer down successfully.

_Smack!_

Harry grimaced as he heard the hard collision of forehead against forehead reverberate across the bridge. The Newcomer had found himself on the receiving end of a superhuman headbutt. Deep scarlet liquid stained the faces of both men but the Newcomer owned an expression of pain rather than the triumphant one on Fenrir's face.

"WHO ARE YOU?" screamed the werewolf maintaining his hold.

The Newcomer merely spit blood into the werewolf's face. Fenrir really didn't seem to mind as he used his tongue to wipe it off but still gave the man a second headbutt for good measure.

"Are you with those Order freaks?" the werewolf questioned.

"I'm with Blockbuster Video, mutt!" responded the Newcomer defiantly.

The werewolf gave a third truly gruesome collision against the Newcomer's skull.

Harry could see the blood gushing from the pinned man's face. His nose broken, his forehead gushing nearly collapsed and bruises on his wrists from being restrained and yet the Newcomer never gave up. Harry felt a strange mix of admiration and pity for the Newcomer. He knew what it was like to be pinned down by a monster with no hope. But then again the Newcomer wasn't hopeless was he…

Harry had gone unnoticed by both parties during their struggle. If Harry moved quietly but quickly enough he could save the Newcomer and possibly himself. If only he had enough time to plan it out…

But unfortunately for Harry he did not have the time to plan out his rescue mission. The sight of the mangled flesh and the taste of the Newcomer's blood were too much for Fenrir to resist any longer. Harry saw the change in the werewolf's face seconds before it happened. The yes turned a midnight black and the knife like teeth lengthened considerably. A thick, pink, saliva dripping tongue emerged from Fenrir's mouth and swept over his pink lips in anticipation of the kill.

Harry, forced to work on his adrenaline rush and instinct once again, charged unmercifully. Harry threw all his weight and momentum into the impact and collided with the werewolf's shoulder sending them both flying. Fenrir, who had been to preoccupied by his unexpected prey, had been caught off guard. Harry landed almost ten feet away from the werewolf, who looked positively livid.

This time it was the werewolf who charged Harry who was still sprawled on the ground in the spread eagle position. The werewolf was closing in quickly and Harry's first instinct was _RUN!_ but his bad leg gave out underneath him and Harry dropped to the ground like a stone. Harry struggling to get up again, tried to push down on the cement and lift but his right hand landed on something not so flat. Harry looked down and saw that the Newcomer's sword had been tossed there during the earlier struggle. Harry turned back and saw Fenrir only two feet away…

Grasping the handle, Harry leveled the blade out in front of him like a spear. By the time Fenrir noticed the sudden appearance of the sword it was too late. Carried by his own charges' momentum he was swiftly impaled through the chest by the sword, whose tips jettisoned out his back and a wave of fresh blood. Harry felt Fenrir go instantly still and the feeling of warm liquid carried itself across his abdomen, soaking into his shirt.

The werewolf's dead weight put even more pressure on the swords handled which was digging in a most uncomfortable way into Harry's stomach. The pain began to worsen as Harry struggled desperately to lift the weight of the dead body off of him. After three attempts Harry left the handle to be set against him painfully.

"Here let me help you with that, kid" said a gruff voice from above him.

Harry focused his attention on the hooded figure of the Newcomer. In, what Harry grumpily decided, was an effortless move, the man lifted the werewolf's body and dropped it to the ground next to Harry. Harry sighed contentedly as the building pressure of the handle blade was finally gone.

"Thank you," said Harry, lifting a hand to shield his eyes from the mid-day sun.

"I believe that's my line," said the Newcomer with what Harry could have sworn was a smile.

"Who are you?" asked Harry as he tried to stand.

The Newcomer grabbed his elbow to steady him and Harry leaned against him for support.

"I think we'd better get you outta here, kid," said the Newcomer, looking to the sky.

"I'm not sure how fast I'll be able to go with my leg all torn up," replied Harry.

At the words "torn up" the Newcomer snapped his head down to look Harry over. "Shit!" he cried as he realized that Harry's shirt was stained with blood from the chest down. Instantly the Newcomer pulled up the hem of Harry's shirt and nearly hauled it over his head.

"Hey!" cried Harry in alarm.

"Are you injured?" the man asked, still searching Harry over for the origin of the blood.

"It's his," explained Harry, pointing a thumb over his shoulder towards the dead werewolf.

"Take it off!" ordered the Newcomer immediately, "if you've any open wounds and the werewolf's blood mixes with yours you could become infected."

Harry ripped off the shirt and flung it onto Fenrir's lifeless form in under two seconds flat.

"That's a good lad," encouraged the Newcomer, "but we've still got to get out of here."

"Won't the Order be here soon?" asked Harry.

"Yes," said the Newcomer, "but it'll be worse if we're still here when they do."

"What?" asked Harry, "Why would it be worse?"

"Don't you see?" asked the Newcomer, "Only someone in the Order could have tipped off Voldemort and his crew."

Somehow Harry wasn't surprised that the Newcomer had no qualms about using Voldemort's name. Harry knew there were too many other wizards who had to use pseudonyms like 'He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" out of fear. But the idea that there could be a spy in the Order of the Phoenix troubled Harry.

"Who else knew about the last minute change in your arrival time, eh?" asked the Newcomer knowledgably.

Harry remembered that after Dumbledore's funeral both Professor McGonagall and Mad-Eye Moody had spoken to him about the travel arrangements to Kings Cross.

_"We don't want to worry you, Potter" explained McGonagall, her teary face becoming suddenly firm._

_"Worry me about what?" Harry has asked them._

_"The Order feels that it's imperative to continue treating your security with the utmost scrutiny and proficiency," said Moody. "In light of that we don't want you traveling with the other students on the train, in case there was an incident."_

_"You think there will an attack on the Hogwarts Express?" cried Harry in alarm._

_"We've received no confirmation of an attack, Potter," answered McGonagall, whilst glaring a hole through Moody's skull, "but we would like to continue being careful just in case."_

_"It's also important," reminded McGonagall, "that you are seen doing things as normally as possible so that people will start to feel comforted. Normally Albus would be the one setting those kinds of examples but…he's not here anymore."_

_"How can I act like I'm living my life as I always do if I'm not even on the train?" asked Harry._

_"We'll be sending Bill Weasley under Polyjuice Potion so that people will think you're there."_

_"Not to mention it'll be good to have an extra wand at the ready," added Moody before seeing McGonagall's glare and adding, "just in case, of course."_

Only Moody, McGonagall, Bill and Harry knew about the change in plans. Unless, of course, one of the other three had told someone else, but Harry doubted it was likely that they'd have done so. After all, Harry hadn't even told his friends. Harry had been flown to the Leaky Cauldron by Moody before catching a Portkey to Kings Cross. Since this plan had required much less time than riding the Hogwarts Express, he had arrived a good four hours earlier than the train.

His Aunt and Uncle had been waiting for him outside the train station as McGonagall had asked them and then they'd driven home. Well they'd almost made it home before the dragon attack and then Fenrir and now… here he was.

It seemed that Snape was not the only Order Member that Dumbledore had been mistaken about…

"Come on…" started the Newcomer when an enormous growl ripped through the sky from somewhere over the horizon.

"The dragon?" asked Harry dumbly.

"And his rider" said the Newcomer, scanning the sky around them, "Must have been given instructions to get you alone for the werewolf and then go terrorize the surrounding Muggles. We won't have much time before he comes back to check on the werewolf."

The Newcomer grabbed Harry by the arm and swiftly began guiding him towards the wrecked car.

"I thought that Fenrir was his rider," panted Harry as he tried to keep up on his injured leg.

"No," explained the Newcomer, "werewolves and dragons, like all dark creatures, don't mix well together. They're too antsy around each other to ever join forces and work together. The werewolf must have apparated here once the Rider told him where he'd left you."

The Newcomer let Harry lean against the overturned car before strolling over to his Cousin Dudley's unconscious form and checking for a pulse.

"Is he… alive?" asked Harry through the lump in his throat.

"Yes," answered the Newcomer while checking Petunia's pulse, "they both are."

The Newcomer took out two shoelaces from within his robe and tied one to each unconscious member of Harry's family.

"These are portkeys," explained the Newcomer in answer to Harry's curious expression, "they'll take them directly to St. Mungos in London. _Portus_."

The unconscious bodies of his Aunt and her son evaporated from sight and Harry said a silent prayer of thanks before asking, "What about us?"

"We've got other means of transport," answered the Newcomer cryptically.

"Which is… what exactly?" asked Harry trying to distinguish a broom or another portkey from the rubble of the day's battle.

"Just a moment," said the Newcomer as he went to the werewolf's body. "Looks like a kabob doesn't he?"

In one swift movement the Newcomer pulled the sword out of the werewolf's abdomen and sheathed it into a sling on his back.

"What is that thing?" asked Harry, referring to the weapon.

"This is called a katana," answered the Newcomer.

"And that's what's supposed to get us out of here?" exclaimed Harry. "Can't we just take a portkey, too?"

"I only had two of them, kid," shrugged the Newcomer.

A third roar from the Dragon was heard and this time they both could see the beast in the distance. Each massive wing was flapping hard in the air, bringing it ever closer to them.

"So what are we supposed to do now?" cried Harry.

"Come on, kid!" exclaimed the Newcomer in excitement, "haven't you ever wanted to slay a dragon before?"

"WHAT?" Harry shouted in panic and fear that maybe Fenrir's headbutt's had mentally incapacitated the Newcomer in some way.

The Newcomer chuckled and said, "Just kidding!"

Harry sighed out loud and the Newcomer laughed again.

"Grab onto me!"

Harry limped over to the Newcomer, using the car for support, and grabbed the man's right arm.

The dragon and its rider had now landed on the bridge.

"You can call me Jonathan!" the Newcomer yelled over the sound of another growl from the massive beast.

Harry smiled to himself and thought, _And finally the Newcomer has a name._

A second later bright orange flames erupted around the pair and in the next they were gone. Leaving a bewildered Death Eater to look back and forth from the place where his targets had disappeared to his dragon that had never released any flames.

His master was not going to be happy about this…

_12 Grimmauld Place_

_12:02 p.m._

_The Same Day_

Deep within the bowels of 12 Grimmauld Place there was a disturbing argument brewing. In the converted basement/kitchen a large circular table had been constructed by Arthur Weasley so that every member of the Order of the Phoenix's Inner Circle could see each other equally. Mad-Eye Moody and Minerva McGonagall had just arrived with Bill Weasley and now the meeting was about to begin. Today's gathering would be a large factor on the fate of the Order of the Phoenix's future and who would decide it. With Dumbledore gone the position of leader was empty and desperately needed to be filled.

Despite her many protestation of taking over her friends' position, Minerva McGonagall was still the majority of the Order members' choice for the new leader. Minerva had already said that running Hogwarts was going to be time consuming enough and absolutely refused to take the position. While many people thought this was a plausible explanation, other thought it was because she was still grieving over Albus Dumbledore's death.

Another candidate to take over Dumbledore's position was Mad-Eye Moody himself. While it was true that Mad-Eye had a great many roles in leadership positions in the past and he knew more about Wizarding war tactics than anyone else in the Order, many people just couldn't stand taking orders from the deranged and highly paranoid ex-auror. The problem was people didn't trust his judgment enough to give their lives for him.

There were a few that thought Harry Potter might take over the Order of the Phoenix but there were too many members against that idea. In fact, the strongest voices against Harry's leadership were Molly and Arthur Weasley, who had known the boy the longest.

Remus Lupin's name was tossed into the air several times but shot down almost immediately. The fact was that three nights out of every month, and the weeks before and after, the Order's leader would be defenseless and dangerous to everyone around him. It would be too easy to cut off the "head" of the Order during those three days.

Several other names had been tossed around including Arthur Weasley, Kingsley Shacklebolt and the eldest Weasley boys. There were so many valid points for one candidate yet so many equally negative ones per candidate. There was simply no way to win. Dumbledore had had power and knowledge. He was a born leader and there was simply no way to replace him. But unfortunately they had to do it today.

But with such indecision the Order felt they needed a new way to select a leader. Strangely enough it was Rubeus Hagrid that provided them with the tools to which they needed to survive. Hagrid had found one of Fawkes's tail feathers and managed to preserve it for last week's meeting. Minerva McGonagall had recalled a complicated choosing spell that bordered dangerously on the Dark Arts. Unfortunately it was the only option they had left, one they couldn't afford to misuse.

"As Albus Dumbledore has instructed," started Minerva McGonagall, "I will lead today's meeting and then our newly chosen leader will take over for the next."

The assembled group nodded their heads and waited for the Headmistress to begin working on the ritual but to their surprise she did not. Instead she waited for every head in the room to be turned towards her before beginning again.

"I would like to begin today's meeting with a moment of reflective silence for Albus," she said personably to the group. "He gave so much to us that I feel it only right. If you could all please…"

The group took out their wands and raised them to their own temples and began to hum. When every eye in the room was closed Minerva crossed the room to the closed cabinet located there. With a quiet _Alhomora_ the doors clicked open and she retrieved the object she desired. Before the humming ended completely she had relocked the cabinet doors and placed the object in front of the person standing directly beside her, Arthur Weasley.

Arthur opened his eyes and slowly pulled the wand away from his temple. Attached to the tip of the wand was a cloud of pale floating liquid that he led into the bowl below him. Next he slid the bowl to his wife, who was next to him, and sat back down on his hard wooden seat. Slowly, one by one, every member of the Order extracted a memory and placed it lovingly into the pensieve that McGonagall had retrieved. Finally there was only Minerva McGonagall to go and she took the most time. Nearly ten minutes past before she found the perfect memory of the man she held as her closest friend and placed in the pensieve.

When Minerva was done she silently moved the pensieve into the storage cabinet where it would sit until the fight of the Order of the Phoenix was done. Minerva remembered how nearly 16 years ago Albus and the surviving Order members had retrieved the pensieve and watched together the memories of the ones they had lost during the battles. It was, in the Wizarding world, the final act of closure for a group such as themselves. And here they were starting the fight all over again…

"Minerva?" called a tentative and sympathetic voice from her left.

Minerva McGonagall turned to look into the eyes of Nymphadora Tonks, her former pupil and current auror. Minerva smiled and brought her thoughts back to the here and now, where they were needed most. She saw the concerned looks that her fellow members were giving her and knew she must have been in quiet thought for some time. Nodding her thanks to Tonks she stood and raised her wand.

A brilliant blue flame shot out of the tip and stopped in the dead center of the room. It began to twirl and move, completely oblivious to the air currents, and continued to do so. Minerva summoned the phoenix feather that Hagrid had saved and with a thought sent it shooting into the blue flame. An explosion like fireworks erupted and sparks flew everywhere but didn't burn what they touched. Instead, they were snapped back into the flame from wherever they landed, the flame turning a violently red color. Minerva nodded to her fellow Order members and those that wished to become a leader stood from their seats.

Arthur, Bill and Charlie Weasley practically stood as one. Mad-Eye was slower but was followed, out of respect, by Kingsley Shacklebolt. Minerva gave it another thirty seconds in case others needed to gather up their courage but when no one else stood she sat down. After another ten seconds Minerva stood again to indicate that she too wanted to be a leader. She barely noticed the mixture of pleased and shocked faces that she had chosen to do so, especially after she had denied vehemently to take over.

Those that were standing each used a single thought to create the next step of the ritual. A knife appeared in each candidate's hand and without hesitation they drew deep cuts into their left palms. The blood from each candidate flowed along an invisible track in the air directly from them to the red flame. When the last of the blood trails connected with the flame, it changed to a deep plum color.

A single thought was echoed through the minds of those standing: _Who will it be?_

Without warning, the purple flames lit the blood trails on fire which raced back to the candidates so quickly no one had time to defend themselves. The flames burned the blood trails to nothingness and then seeped into the open wound sealing each of them with a burning hiss. Those standing screamed in agony as the last of the flames seared and scared their flesh with a painful burn.

Minerva looked down at her palms and saw the Roman numeral "I" branded onto her left hand where her wound had been. Inspired by an idea she grabbed Arthur Weasley's hand and confirmed her suspicions. She raced around the room looking at everyone's hand and when she finally came back to her seat the whole room was in uproar. Molly Weasley was magically wrapping her husbands hand in a cloth. Bill and Charlie were muttering to each other about the possible interpretations of the new scars. Mad-Eye Moody looked rather appalled at having been "tricked" into some kind of Dark spell and was furiously telling his neighbors about it. Kingsley Shacklebolt was speaking to Tonks and Remus Lupin about his new "birthmark".

McGonagall cleared her throat once, and when people continued to talk she decided to use a tactic that she reserved for intolerably gossip filled first years. Using her thought magic she raised her wands and the sound of nail screeching down a chalkboard filled the room. Finally they turned to her and she stopped.

"Now that we've all settled down" she said sternly, "I believe it is time to discuss what's happened. If we could all sit, please."

"Why did it burn us, Minerva?" asked Arthur.

"Because it was Dark magic, Weasley!" cried Moody, "We've all been duped into it by _her_!"

"Oh shut up, Mad-Eye!" rebuked Molly Weasley, "I've had enough of your complaining about Minerva! Honestly you act like a two year old sometimes!"

Mad-Eye sat back down on his chair and Minerva could have sworn she heard him mutter something about being "in cahoots".

"If all those who were candidates would please show their hands" she instructed as one by one they followed her lead.

"Your _left_ hand, Charlie!" whispered Molly Weasley across the table to her son.

Minerva almost smiled.

"As you can see we each have been given Roman numerals," she pointed out.

The group looked to each hand and nodded their agreement of the observation before Tonks found the flaw.

"But I thought the next in line was the only one to be marked."

Minerva smiled, "When using the regular ingredients, yes. But since we had a phoenix feather with us the results were more than expected."

"More?" asked Moody triumphantly, "I told you it was Dark magic. You never get the proper results when you use it!"

Minerva continued as if he hadn't interrupted, "Not only did it choose the next in line, but it gave us a line of succession. Thus if the current leader is under duress than the next in line will take over and we won't have to repeat the spell at a later date."

"Does it start at 'one' and go to 'six', or the other way around?" asked Charlie hesitantly.

"I'm not sure" confessed Minerva.

"Who has 'one' and who has 'six'?" asked Molly.

"I have 'one'," declared Minerva with a faint blush that only her closest neighbors could see.

"I have 'six'," said Charlie Weasley with a grin.

"That settles it," said Bill with a grin of his own, "It goes one to six."

Charlie smacked him in the head but it lightened the mood considerably.

"Very well then," said Arthur, "Minerva is our new Order leader. Agreed?"

A chorus of 'agreed' followed except for one noticeable voice.

"Alastor?" said Arthur archly.

"Fine," said Moody gruffly, after a pause in which every Order member had glared at him.

_The Island of Aeolus_

_12:52 pm_

_The Same Day_

A white and grey seagull was perched on a rotting piece of driftwood, contentedly cleansing itself with its beak, when a flash of violent orange flames erupted not five feet from its resting place. A young raven haired boy fell to the ground and was helped up by a man in a black robe. The seagull took flight into the air with an irritated croak, leaving the two men as the only occupants of the seemingly abandoned pearl white beach.

The man named Jonathan lowered the hood of his robes and smiled at his surroundings. He looked to his companion, grinned and asked, "So what do you think, Harry?"

Harry looked up from the beach towards his rescuer, expecting to see a hood, and instead he saw Jonathan's face for the first time. Buzzed black hair mixed nicely with his chocolate eyes making him appear younger than Harry thought at first. Sculpted facial features gave the man a tough look but it all came together quite well.

Harry swept his gaze from Jonathan's smiling face to the perimeter around them. Tall green trees stood sentinel between the pearl colored sands and the forest interior. Harry was strongly reminded of a picture his Aunt Petunia had stuck to her fridge that one of her "weekly tea party friends" had sent her while on vacation. The words "WISH YOU WERE HERE" had been stamped across the bottom in large white block letters, while the background had been a beautiful Hawaiian beach.

"Are we in Hawaii?" asked Harry curiously.

"No," chuckled Jonathan, "We're in a much better place. What made you think it was Hawaii?"

"Just something my Aunt showed me once."

The memory of the postcard merely reminded Harry of the incident on the bridge no more than an hour ago. He sighed and added his Uncle Vernon to the growing list of casualties in his mind.

_When would it end?_ he asked himself angrily, before answering his own question, _When you kill him._

Jonathan placed a comforting hand on Harry's shoulder and said, "Don't dwell on it, Harry. You'll avenge them all soon enough."

"Yeah, but HOW?" Harry exploded knocking the hand away and falling to his knees as his the last of his strength gave way. "That's what everyone keeps _saying_ but how do they _know._ Merlin, I don't even know what I'm going to do!"

The prophecy looming in the background combined with the deaths of the people that were supposed to be constants in his life was too much for him. With Dumbledore's funeral just the other day and Fenrir's attack, Harry knew things were coming together too fast. Just last week he'd been afraid of taking a life, and yet this morning he had taken his first life. It was just too much, too fast.

While Harry was busy filtering through his own emotions, Jonathan had been watching him closely. He knelt down beside Harry and placed the hand back on the young man's shoulder. Harry turned to his rescuer with a wondering look.

Jonathan sighed and asked, "Would you like to know how to fight, Harry?"

Harry eyes widened and he sat quietly for a moment before replying, "I want to know how to protect my friends… I don't want them to die because of my weaknesses."

Jonathan nodded and asked, "You know there's only one way to protect them, don't you?"

"He told you the prophecy didn't he, Jonathan," Harry stated; it was not a question.

Neither male felt any need to clarify exactly who 'he' was.

"He did," admitted Jonathan. "If you ask me, I will teach you Harry. But remember that I won't just be teaching you how to defend yourself. If you start training, I'll teach you how to kill. And you, Harry, will have to be willing to learn. You may not want to be a killer Harry, but sometimes you don't have a choice."

"Like this morning?" asked Harry.

Jonathan nodded, "_Exactly _like this morning. I know that you may not feel like it now, but it was self defense. And next time, and yes there _will_ be a next time, you may not have the luxury of claiming self defense."

Harry felt tears in his eyes and uncertainty building in his chest.

"It won't be easy Harry, none of it will be," Jonathan continued, "but what in life is anymore?"

_Could he do it?_ he asked himself._ Could he learn how to take a life? Could he become a killer?_

And yet, from the deepest recesses of his mind, the answer came quickly.

_You don't have a choice._

Jonathan stood and offered Harry his hand.

Harry stared at the hand in what felt like the longest moment in his life before he reached out and grasped Jonathan's hand in silent agreement.

As Jonathan led Harry through tall trees and into the forest he could hear a teasing voice calling out to him from inside his mind.

_Harry Potter, The-Boy-Who-Became-A-Killer._

_The Bridge_

_1:18 pm_

_The Same Day_

Remus was going absolutely insane with worry. Not that Tonks blamed her fiancée for being panicked, but she had never seen him more upset. Tonks could vividly remember each night of the full moon before a transformation, how upset Remus always became. Tonks hated to see the object of her affections in such turmoil, but this was ten times worse. Her heart pounded painfully against her chest as she watched Remus move from one spot of the bridge to another. She couldn't imagine how badly Remus would react if he found some evidence that Harry had been killed during the attack.

Half an hour after the selection ritual had ended, Fred and George Weasley had bounded into the meeting and announced that there had been an attack made against Harry. The room had gone deathly silent until Fred explained that there had been no body matching Harry's description at the scene. McGonagall, seizing what little hope she could out of the information, had sprung into action and ordered Kingsley Shacklebolt and Mad-Eye Moody to investigate the scene.

Remus demanded to go but McGonagall thought he might be too unstable at the moment. Tonks had never known Remus to curse, but he had spouted off a dictionary full of swears at Minerva before fleeing the room. Tonks chased after him and caught his arm before he apparated to the bridge, dragging Tonks along for the ride. She and Remus had just landed off to the side of the bridge when they were pulled into the brush by Moody and Kingsley.

Tonks counted over a dozen Muggle policemen scouring over the site looking for clues. After another thirty minutes of waiting, Moody became impatient and ordered them all to take out their wands. Tonks, Remus, Kingsley and Moody began wordlessly casting Muggle-repelling charms along the bridge until every muggle was forced away. Once the last muggle was out of seeing distance Remus charged onto the bridge, leaving the others in his wake.

Ten minutes later and Tonks was standing on the bridge, still waiting for one of her three companions to voice some of their conclusions about the crime scene. Suddenly Remus stood still and looked to her. Tonks knew the look well enough to know that Remus had just made some kind of discovery.

"What is it?" she asked quietly as she approached.

"I can smell him," he said, his eyes narrowing dangerously.

"We knew Harry was here, Remus," she said gripping his shoulder in support.

"Not Harry," said Remus, "_Fenrir."_

"Shit!" said Tonks, cracking the heel of her boot against the hard pavement. She hoped to Merlin that Harry hadn't been bitten.

"What is it?" asked Kingsley, who had heard the violent exclamation.

"Fenrir was here," Remus said distractedly.

Kingsley opened his mouth to reply but Tonks held up a firm hand, motioning for quiet.

Remus moved to the overturned vehicle and crouched down beside one of the smashed windows. He lowered himself to all fours and sniffed at a bloody shard.

"This has Harry all over it," Remus said before following the smell of Harry's scent across the bridge to another blood stain. "And this does, too."

"The kid's taken worse beatings," said Moody gruffly.

Tonks glared at the ex-auror and prayed that Remus wouldn't be able to say any of the other blood belonged to Harry. Unfortunately for her, Remus was able to uncover four more moderately sized puddles of blood that had once been _inside_ Harry. Tonks also silently cheered for Harry when Remus smelled two even larger pools of blood that belonged to Fenrir.

"That's too much blood lost for him to still be alive," commented Kingsley, of Fenrir's twin pools of blood.

"Then where's the body?" asked Tonks.

"Muggles must have taken it with them," Moody said to Kingsley, "Remember that mortuary van? The werewolf must have been its only customer."

"Not the only one," said Remus sadly, as they all turned back to him. "None of Harry's family is here either."

Four faces fell at the thought that now Harry had lost everyone he was related to. Even though Tonks had seen how badly Harry was mistreated at the Dursley's home, it was still horrible to think that Harry was all alone now. Or was Harry also in the mortuary van? Tonks voiced her concerns to the group.

"His scent disappears here," said Remus, pointing to a section of concrete by the car. "I can sense some residual magic, so he must have disapparated."

"That's good news at least," said Kingsley.

"Not really," sighed Remus, "There's another scent here with him that also disappears."

"You think he was taken?" asked Tonks worriedly.

"Does it look like he went willingly?" replied Moody sarcastically.

"Actually I think he did," Remus countered, "There's no blood here or any sign of a struggle at this point. I'm sure he went willingly."

"Could have been unconscious" offered Moody.

"Harry was bleeding, Mad-Eye," said Remus, "If he dropped anywhere due to a curse of exhaustion, there'd be blood there to indicate it. And unless you can tell me you are better at sensing blood than I am, I'm going to assume he went willingly."

Moody scowled but held his tongue. Tonks knew he hated being proved wrong so often.

"Did we have anyone here with Harry?" asked Kingsley.

"I _told_ McGonagall there should have been someone stationed on a broom" cried Moody in his 'I-Told-You-So!' voice.

"So if we didn't have anyone here," asked Tonks slowly, "than who did he leave with?"

A deadly silence filled the air as the implications began to brew in the quartet's minds.

"I don't know," said Remus finally, "but whoever it was, he wasn't one of ours."

_County Morgue's Office_

_11:37 pm_

_The Same Day_

Jason Lendridge had always hated his job. Being the night watchmen at the local Morgue was not his idea of a perfect summer job. There were only two reasons he put up with it. The first was because the pay was good and it was close to his apartment. Coming from a family that was just on the cusp between middle and lower class wasn't exactly helping him with his university tuition money. As it was he needed to keep both this job and the one at the school to pay the minimum amount to stay in school. Between working and keeping his tennis scholarship he had barely enough time to sleep.

The second reason was that no one ever visited the morgue this late at night so he had plenty of time to finish off the last of his homework. His friends constantly mocked him or tried to scare him with stories about the living dead but after a while he had gotten used to them. Or so he had thought up until ten minutes ago.

While finishing up the last of his English paper he had taken a casual glance at the rack of security monitors on the wall behind him. At first everything had appeared normal until he reached the camera labeled '3F'. This screen, on the third shelf and the sixth one from the left, had been filled with television snow. Jason felt a brief flitter in his stomach before he felt resigned to do his duty.

He followed protocol and checked to make sure that all the wires were hooked up correctly before locking up his small security room. His office, which he shared with the day and swing shift guards, was located at the end of the main hall opposite the front doors. During nights like this, when the full moon was out, light cascaded into the hall from the front doors. Thus creating shadows on the large pillars that lined both sides of the hall.

Jason's shoes echoed loudly as he walked across the main hallway to make sure the main entrance was still padlocked securely. When he verified that it was, he turned and walked back to his office. At the halfway point he could have sworn he heard an animal growling in the shadows and he stopped. His heart pounding louder than his echoing shoes.

"Hello?" he called out into the darkness.

_If you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you._

Jason physically shook his head to clear out the Friedrich Nietzsche quote that he remembered from his morning psychology class. He had thought it was cool this morning, now it scared the living shit out of him.

When nothing attacked, him Jason sighed and continued his walk down the main hall, convincing himself the noises had all been in his head. At the end of the hall he turned right and bravely stepped into the infinite darkness, using his memory as a guide, until he reached the elevators. Two identical steel doors stood in front of him, each labeled 1 to 6 above the entrances. When the elevators were had not been used in two hours they were supposed to wait on the third floor until someone pressed the call button. Otherwise they were supposed to wait on the floor they had last opened at. Jason checked his watch nervously and saw that it had been over three hours since anyone had used the elevators. Yet only one of them was waiting on the third floor.

The other was patiently waiting on the fourth floor. The ground floor. _Jason's_ floor.

Jason swallowed hard and pressed the call button. The door on his floor swung open immediately and revealed…

…empty space.

Jason broke into a fit of laughter as he let out the breath he had subconsciously been holding. He stepped into the elevator and pressed the button label '1'. The button lit up and the doors closed automatically before slowly lowering Jason to the bottom floor…the Morgue Storage Level.

Camera number '3F' was located in the Morgue's primary storage room. Jason had only been forced to go down there twice. The first time was when he was being given the tour of the place by the swing-shift guard. And the second, when one of the camera's in the room had shorted out. Jason hoped that this was going to be the same as the latter.

The elevator doors opened revealing a single thin corridor. Dangling from the ceiling were three rows of flickering lights that gave the room a haunted feel. One of the many reasons that Jason hated having to come down to _this_ floor. Even the second floor had better lights than this one. Jason knew that the power from this floor was mainly given over to the cooling fridges at night to conserve energy but that didn't help him now.

Jason strolled past three swinging doors before coming to the right one. He pushed one of the double doors open and entered the room. Jason stopped dead at the sight before him. To his left were the cooling fridges, each stacked in columns next to each other like a giant game of tic-tac-toe. On his right were five display tables, where the bodies were cleaned and given proper autopsies before being sown back up and stored in one of the fridges. Camera '3F' was supposed to be mounted on the back right hand corner wall… but it wasn't.

The camera lay in pieces on the ground below its holder, giving out sparks of electricity every few seconds. Jason saw a piece of heavily dented metal lying next to the camera pieces. Jason realized that it was one of the doors to the fridges. Glancing quickly to his right, Jason saw that the dead center storage fridge was missing both a door and a body. Jason hurried over to the dented door and bent down to examine it.

_Are those…_

Scratch marks scarred one side of the door as if some kind of animal had broken its way out of the container. Something that wasn't dead… anymore.

Jason's mind screamed at him about the animal sounds he had heard earlier and he knew he was no longer alone in the morgue tonight. There was something else here and it was strong enough to dent a _very_ thick metal door.

There was a loud 'ding' noise behind him and Justin turned so fast he tripped over his own feet and fell to the ground in a heap.

_The elevator!_

Jason scrambled into a standing position and tiptoed over to the swinging doors. He placed a hand against them and pushed slowly, opening the door a fraction of an inch at a time. When he could see down the corridor he stopped pushing and focused his eyes on the shadow by the elevators. Something with lots of… _fur_… was sniffing the ground and Jason put his free hand over his mouth to stop the scream from erupting out of his mouth. He could have sworn he felt his whole stock of hair turn white at the sight of the beast.

It was like a coyote… no something bigger… a bear maybe.

_There aren't any bears around here!_ he thought wildly.

The monster suddenly snorted and looked down the slim hallway. Jason felt his breath catch in his throat. It was almost as if it were looking right at him and… was it grinning?

Jason's heart was doing double time as he eased the door shut and backed away from the door. He kept backing up until he felt his back hit something hard and he screamed and turned to face it.

Just a wall.

A growl from the hallway and Jason nearly pissed himself.

The sound of four limbs stalking closer to the door and he did.

Frightened and embarrassed Jason's survival instincts kicked in.

_HIDE!_

Jason looked around but there was no place to hide in a morgue unless you were dead!

_That's it!_

Jason ran to the nearest storage freezer, threw open the door and pulled the tray out. There was already a corpse on the slab but he didn't care. Jason climbed onto the dead body, placed his hands on the side of the container and slowly reeled the tray back into the freezer. As he closed the door to the storage freezer he saw the swinging door open.

Jason waited for what felt like hours, straining to stop himself from making any noise and tried to listen to the sounds of the animal outside his hiding place. At one point he thought he heard sniffing noises coming from outside his container but he held it together. Then he heard the swinging door open and close again and he sighed with relief.

But then a loud banging noise erupted from somewhere in the room and he prayed to God it wasn't what he thought it was.

The monster was slowly breaking into each of the storage freezers and pulling out the occupants. Jason knew it was only a matter of time before…

His door dented and Jason started to cry.

Another jab, this one more ferocious, and the corners of the door bent inwards.

Jason braced himself as the third and final shove sent the doors flying into him. He gasped at the pain of the contact but hid his head in his arms as tears streamed down his face. He felt wetness against the top of his head and he shuddered.

He was being tasted.

Jason looked up and saw the beast's grey eyes staring back at him. And then the attack began.

A mouth with two rows of knife like teeth dug into his shoulder and the Beast dragged him painfully out of the freezer and onto the floor. Jason screamed in pain as he was dragged into the center of the room, a bloody trail marking his trek across the room. Finally the teeth released him and he spit up blood.

The beast placed his rear on Jason's legs and bent his head down towards Jason's abdomen, it used its nose to push Jason's shirt up to his neck. Jason was immobilized in fear and didn't realize what was going to happen until the moment before it did. The beast reared back its head, let out a triumphant howl before using its teeth to dig into the tennis toned stomach of Jason Lendridge.

When Jason had stopped screaming and the floor of the autopsy room had been flooded with the youths blood the creature stepped back from its prey. It crawled up into the corner of the room like a lonely puppy and slowly fell asleep.

But before the monster's mind left consciousness completely it had one last amusing thought.

"_Potter should have known to use a _silver_ blade against me…"_

LAST UPDATED: August 11, 2005

Author's Notes:

The mention of Blockbuster by Jonathan during the bridge scene is a tribute to the Bill Murray movie "The Man Who Knew Too Little." I recommend it to all of you. Some of you may remember this fic as the PHOENIX FIRE TRILOGY. Most people thought it to be abandoned but it was actually under revision to include OoTP and now HBP. I would like to thank my wonderful beta Vira for all her hard work. There is also no Britpicker for this fic so I ask you all to forgive me if you're offended by that. Somehow I think elevator sounds better in this chapter than lift, don't you?

The next chapter: THE ISLAND LIFE will be available in the next few days. But for those of you who can't wait there is a rough draft version on my yahoo group (http/groups. you for reading and please know that the more reviews I receive the faster I will update! And why yes this is a bribe, don't you just love those?

U-No-Poo


	2. Chapter 2

Harry Potter and the Seventh Horcrux

By, U-No-Poo

"A monk awoke from a dream that he was a butterfly,

then wondered whether he was a butterfly dreaming he was a man."

- Buddhist parable

**Chapter Two: The Island Life**

_The Island of Aeolus_

_1:26 pm_

_The Same Day_

Harry was leaning heavily on Jonathan by the time they arrived at the manner.

"The manner, Harry," Jonathan had explained during the hike, "is where I live. It's located at the direct center of the island. It will also be your new home until we've completed your training."

The moment the manner had come into view Harry had let out a small sigh of relief and Jonathan allowed him a minute's rest. Harry sat heavily on a boulder near the trail and casually looked over the place he was expected to call home. Harry wasn't sure if he could get used to living in a place as beautiful and extravagant as the resort looking building in front of him. After living the first eleven years of your life in a cupboard you find there are just some places you'll never be comfortable in.

The front of the manner had seven full sets of stairs building up to it, like those Aztec temples Harry had seen in a muggle social science book. Each of the steps were made of a grey stone and at the top of the massive incline were eight pillars that stretched horizontally across the front of the building. The edge of the roof connected to the eight pillars and moved away from them. Harry guessed that the distance between the pillars and the front door was quite a ways because even from this distance he couldn't see the entrance.

Jonathan must have seen Harry's distress at having to walk up all the steps to the entrance and said, "Don't worry kid, we'll be taking an easier route than all those stairs."

Harry was so exhausted he was only able to give a small smile of relief to show he had understood what Jonathan had said.

"Don't relax too much now," warned Jonathan, "once your leg heals we'll be starting your training and you'll be jogging those stairs between every meal. You're too thin and are in desperate need of some muscle."

Harry frowned at how Jonathan described him, but knew deep down that this was what he had agreed to and smartly kept his mouth shut.

"Breaks up!" declared Jonathan after another minute went by.

By the time Jonathan and Harry had reached the manner, Harry felt he was ready to puke himself gutless.

"We're almost there, kid."

Harry gathered his strength and followed his new mentor towards the first set of long stairs.

"I thought…we…weren't gonna…climb…these," panted Harry in ragged breaths.

"We're not," said Jonathan shortly before removing his katana sword and walking alone up the first four steps. It was only when Jonathan raised his sword that Harry noticed the small crack on the fifth step just the right size for a blade. As Harry predicted, Jonathan let the blade fall into the crack until it was in halfway. To his surprise Jonathan turned the sword like a key in a lock and rumbling noises began to sound around them.

Harry stepped back in shock as the stairs Jonathan had stepped onto started to disappear below the ground. Ten seconds later and Jonathan was standing in the middle of a small passageway that the missing steps had created.

"You coming, kid?" asked Jonathan, not stopping to see whether Harry followed him into the dark emptiness.

Harry swallowed hard, ignored the pain in his leg and slowly limped into the darkness. The moment he was through, the stones began to rise up behind him until the entrance had been sealed and the sun was blocked from view. In the surrounding darkness the sound of stones being shifted again could be heard and then torches erupted along the narrow passageway illuminating Jonathan's slowly vanishing figure. Harry hurried to catch up and then slowed as he came to a dead end. Jonathan was standing in front of the wall that blocked their way in intense concentration.

"What's wrong?" whispered Harry, trying not to surprise the man.

Jonathan shook his head and Harry knew not to say anything more until he was told to. Jonathan placed a hand flat against the wall and squeezed his eyes shut. Harry was reminded of the face Hermione always made whenever the rare occasion popped up that she had to struggle to remember some answer during an exam.

Jonathan dropped his arm and took a step back before saying, "There."

Harry felt like saying "there, what?" but refrained. He needed Jonathan's help and becoming a nuisance before his training had even begun wasn't going to help him. Regardless, his question was answered a second later as the stone wall lifted effortlessly and vanishes through the ceiling.

Jonathan and Harry stepped through the archway and into what appeared to be a large library. Harry smiled at how jealous Hermione would be if she knew he had been to a library like _this._ There was no doubt that it put the Hogwarts library to shame. Floor to ceiling windows, facing the sun, made up the entire left hand wall. Sunlight streamed into the library and illuminated the many rows of books that made the room more of a maze than a library. The ceiling was also made of glass and Harry counted at least four more levels to the library and wondered if his new home had been magically expanded at some point.

"This way," said Jonathan, leading Harry down the aisle to their right and after a few more turns they reached their destination. Harry smiled at the muggle contraption and thanked Merlin he wouldn't have to climb anymore stairs.

An old metal elevator was set into the wall and Jonathan pulled open the accordion like doorway and pressed the call button. A moment later an elevator in desperate need of oiling lowered onto their level and stopped. It was like the elevators Harry had seen in those old Doris Day movies, a square bottom with a pyramid like ceiling where the electrical and safety cords were attached. Harry was surprised that the elevator seemed to run without the aid of any visible magic.

The elevator slowly came to a stop a few floors into their ascent. Jonathan opened the gate and motioned Harry out of the elevator. Harry stepped onto white marble floors and saw a small living room like space. There was a comfortable looking black leather chair facing a fireplace with matching black leather couches on each side of it. In the center of the sitting area was a glass table with jade outcroppings and a fur rug beneath it. There were two doors on either side of the fireplace, both closed. On the opposite side of the room was a small sink with cabinets, a stove, full sized refrigerator and a small island with black painted chairs.

"Is this yours?" asked Harry impressed.

"No," answered Jonathan, "It's yours."

Harry spun to face his new mentor and quickly asked, "WHAT?"

Jonathan cracked a smile and replied, "What did you think we were going to do? Make you sleep outside on the steps?"

Harry suddenly couldn't find the words to express any kind of thank-you or… well anything really. It was like someone had opened his head, dumped everything out and sown it back up without putting the brain back in. The best Harry managed was to close his gaping mouth before Jonathan mentioned it (which he looked about ready to do anyway).

Harry walked over to the window that made up the far wall and gasped at the view. From this far up he could see all the way to the ocean and miles of jungle in all directions. Turning away from the window he saw that beside the elevator there were wall to wall bookshelves, all empty.

"The elevator is the only way in and out of yours and all rooms on this side of the house" explained Jonathan, "There are four elevators total in the manor, one for each side obviously. Got it all so far?"

Harry nodded and Jonathan continued, "The elevator runs off its own… _special_… power supply so there is no way to deactivate it. In case of a fire the elevator is the safest place as it's magically warded against anything that may harm it. So if there is a fire your number one priority is to get to the elevator. It is _not, _however, your first priority to save your belongings. Understand?"

"Yes," answered Harry, "but I haven't got anything to save."

Jonathan dropped his stern attitude and smiled, "Not _yet_ anyway."

Harry wasn't sure what to make of the cryptic reply so instead asked another question.

"How do I know if you're coming to see me?"

"Planning on doing something you need warning about, Harry?" asked Jonathan slyly.

"No!" said Harry quickly, "I just… you know…"

Harry wasn't sure how exactly to phrase it without sounding guilty of plotting some scheme. Luckily Jonathan saved him by laughing.

"It's alright, Harry," chuckled Jonathan, "I, too, understand the necessity of privacy. When someone presses your floor number on the elevator you'll hear a chime. They also won't be allowed to enter your room unless you press this button here."

Jason pointed to a small black button next to the door. Above it was a small screen that showed the inside of the elevator and below it was a white button.

"What's the white button for?" asked Harry.

"It calls the elevator to you," answered Jonathan completely unsurprised by the question, "Anything else or shall I leave you to get some rest?"

Rest sounded perfect to Harry but then he remembered about the relentless pain in his leg and promptly collapsed onto the floor out of sheer exhaustion.

"Harry!" cried Jonathan checking the boy over. "I knew I should have just carried you here."

Jonathan picked the unconscious boy up off the floor and lugged him into the door to the left of the fireplace. Inside was a room with soft white carpeting and a king sized bed, decorated in grey and black. Jonathan laid Harry's head on the nearest pillow and stretched him out into a comfortable position.

Jonathan left the bedroom and entered the door on the right hand side of the fireplace. Harry's bathroom was decorated with black and white tiles and dark colored walls. Jonathan took a quick glance around the bathroom counting off the object he saw until he came to the one he needed.

_Toilet… shower… sink… mirror… closet… shelves… medicine cabinet!_

Jonathan had made sure to give Harry a room with an extensive medicine cabinet. The boy would be starting his training so late in life that the sheer number of injuries he was going to sustain in the first week alone, would call for most of the supply. Gathering what he needed Jonathan closed the cabinet and reentered Harry's bedroom.

The teen was still sleeping which would be an even greater problem for Jonathan. He thought briefly about using an enervating charm but knew that the kid needed rest. Waking him would last only a few moments before the pain put him out again. Resigned to his current position Jonathan dumped the supplies on the bed and moved over to Harry.

First he stripped off the boys' outer clothing and laid them out neatly on the other side of the bed. He would have to tell Harry the house elves had disrobed and bandaged him. He didn't want Harry to feel uncomfortable with him from the get-go for something as silly as revealing skin. It was important that they establish trust from the genesis of their partnership. Jonathan quickly set the bad leg and bandaged it before checking Harry's vital signs again to make sure he was still asleep. When he was sure, Jonathan aimed both of his hands at Harry's body and focused on a single thought: _Heal_.

A bright orange light, like the kind that had carried the pair hundred of thousands of miles away from the bridge, began to swirl around his hands. Jonathan guided the hands across the marred areas of Harry's body until every superficial wound had healed itself. When he was content that he had done everything he could he focused the sum of his attention on the leg. This time he placed both hands, full contact, on the injured leg and let the magic cover the entire ligament.

Jonathan knew that the bandages he had placed there would have to stay on for another night or so but that magic had done its intended work. After returning the unused items to Harry's medicine cabinets, he closed the bedroom door and pressed the white button to call on the elevator.

_Welcome to your new life, Harry James Potter_ he thought as the elevator carried him off to his own room and a much needed rest.

_Elvira's Pub_

_6:30 pm_

_The Same Day_

Mundungus Fletcher sat in his favorite booth at Elvira's Pub. It supplied him with the perfect view of the whole room and the barmaid's very tight uniform as she hustled from table to table. Elvira's Pub was the home away from home for the Wizarding world's greatest scum. That was why Mundungus had been sent here by Minerva McGonagall, his new boss.

Most people in the Order of the Phoenix hadn't expected Mundungus to stay on after Dumbledore had passed and he had enjoyed proving them wrong. Although Mundungus held a special respectful relationship with the dearly departed Headmaster, he also had a deep seeded dedication to the Order. No-one, even Mundungus himself, new quite why but he'd always felt attached to it somehow. Never in his life had he experienced that feeling of a destiny until he crossed paths with Albus Dumbledore nearly 17 years ago.

Of course at that time he hadn't known about the existence of such an organization until after He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's defeat at the hands of the Potter child. He had helped supply Dumbledore with some sensitive information during the First War and only after the war had ended had Dumbledore trusted him enough to clue him in. Then two years ago, while everyone was turning against Dumbledore and Potter, he had been asked to join up again. No one had ever trusted him enough to join anything, even when he was in school at Hogwarts, yet here he was being recruited. Mundungus joined and from then on everything fell into place. Even after Dumbledore's untimely death he wanted to truly _belong_ somewhere, so he decided to stay.

McGonagall had sent him to three pubs already to find any information on who might have taken Harry or anyone who had been responsible for the attacks.

"_I WANT NAMES!" she had yelled at him furiously._

Mundungus so far had come up with absolutely nothing in the past four hours and he had little hope. At least until a familiarly fowl face turned up looking the worse for the wear.

"Macnair!" called Mundungus in a stage whisper.

The figure turned at his name with a wand drawn until he saw who it was. He pocketed the wand and waved Mundungus over. Mundungus silently gave himself a pat on the back now that he had _something_ to report to McGonagall and show that Weasley witch he did belong in the Order. After all _she_ hadn't just come across irrefutable proof that the Death Eaters that had been captured at the Department of Mysteries had been quietly freed from their prison stronghold.

Mundungus knew that Walden Macnair had been one of the attackers at the Ministry that had cost Sirius his life. Mundungus also knew that there'd been no notice of any Death Eater breakouts since the twelve two years ago. Now he had proof that the Ministry was keeping their failures quiet and Voldemort was keeping his victories in the shadows.

"How's it going, Dung?" asked Macnair gruffly.

"What's a matter with you?" asked Mundungus as the barmaid delivered Macnair's drinks. He shook his head to say he didn't want anything to drink.

"Not even going to drink with me, Dung?" asked Macnair stiffly, "Am I no good anymore?"

Mundungus waved over the barmaid and ordered a shot of firewhiskey. He resisted the temptation to drink it just yet. There was some double meaning in Macnair's last question, and he needed to keep his whit about him. At least until he got the full picture from the Death Eater… maybe _then_ he'd get hopelessly drunk.

"Course not," denied Mundungus, "One of the best men I ever knew you is."

"I'm glad someone thinks so," muttered the Death Eater.

Mundungus tried to keep his surprise muffled. Was Macnair, a trained killer, actually moping around because someone had hurt his feelings? He wasn't sure whether to be suspicious or break out in a fit of uncontrollable laughter. Mundungus tried to keep the Death Eater talking as he subtly continued to order drinks for his "friend." After the sixth shot of some green smoking liquid Macnair seemed to visibly deflate.

Finally the Death Eater murmured something about being a failure to his lord, and Mundungus pounced on his opportunity.

"You messed something up?" asked Mundungus, making sure to slur his words so that it would appear he had also had more than just the one shot.

At first he thought he might have appeared to be too eager to comfort Macnair but after the man paused just long enough to take a last shot he started to explain his predicament.

"It wasn't my fault!" the Death Eater exclaimed.

"Of course it wasn't," supported Mundungus.

"They were just so stupid! So careless!"

"Who was, Walden?"

"Bella's trainee's," sighed Macnair, "She sent them to guard the end of the bridge in case Potter made it through…"

"_You_ took Potter!" gasped Mundungus, placing awe in his voice. Unfortunately his plan to boost the man's ego backfired as the man threw his shot glass into the wall behind the bar and screamed at his drinking buddy.

"OF COURSE WE DIDN'T GET HIM! HAVEN'T YOU BEEN LISTENING TO A BLOODY WORD I'VE BEEN SAYING, FLETCHER! WHY DO YOU THINK I'M IN SO MUCH DAMN TROUBLE!"

Mundungus was surprised at the crazed tone the Death Eater was using and tried to think of a way to rectify his mistake. Fortunately he was saved of having to think on his feet as Macnair collapsed onto his bar stool in shaky sobs.

"He's gonna kill me, I just know it!"

"Surely it can't be all that bad?" asked Mundungus.

"You try failing the Dark Lord and see what happens!" cried the Death Eater, "You don't know what it's like! I've always been a faithful follower! It's always been _me_ who he could fall back on!"

Mundungus tried to piece as much information from the man's rant as possible before the most surprising thing happened. Macnair had just finished listing off all the things he'd done for his master when his face was filled with pride and he said, "He even trusted _me_ with one of his horcru-"

Macnair stopped speaking as he clutched his heart through his robe. He turned wildly to face Mundungus in a panic before he stumbled off his chair and fell to the floor. Mundungus jumped to his feet and looked to the crowd, trying to see who might have hexed the man but he found no one looking even remotely suspicious. Well, no more suspicious than usual anyway.

Macnair was still writhing on the ground when he leaned on one hand and pointed the other at Mundungus.

"What…have…you done…to me?" he screamed at him.

"I…I didn't do anything, Walden," denied Mundungus.

Macnair's eyes went wide and he used his free hand to grab his wand and pointed it at Mundungus' heart.

"You…made me…betray…_him_!" he struggled to get out as blood trickled down the sides of his mouth, "I'll…take…you with…me!"

Mundungus had never been fast with a wand and realized he was going to die right there. He backed up against the bar and readied himself for the curse that never came. Mundungus looked back at Macnair and saw that the fingers holding his wand out had fallen off directly from the stem and were strewn across the floor. The Death Eater's tongue was on his chest and the few grey hairs on his head wilted to the ground. Mundungus almost screamed when he watched the man's eyes disengage from his skull with two twin _"pops"_ before falling to the ground. Finally the man's arms, legs and head collapsed one right after the other. Other patrons who had been attracted to the area by the shouting and the appearance of the wand were now backing away from Mundungus with wide, frightened eyes.

The barmaid had pulled her wand on him and order him out of the bar frantically. Mundungus tipped his hat to the woman, raised his only shot of firewhiskey at the corpse of Walden Macnair before downing it in one fast gulp, and disapparated from Elvira's Pub with a loud _crack!_

_The Island of Aeolus_

_8:00 pm_

_The Same Day_

Harry slumbered in what he thought was a dreamless sleep until the voices began to swirl around his consciousness. At first they were whispered in his ears, then they became muffled words and finally full on coherent sentences. Harry struggled to hear what they said.

"You don't think he's dead do you?" asked a voice from his right.

"Who cares? When's dinner?" a second voice asked uncaringly.

"Charlie!" rebuked the first voice.

"What?"

There was a pause and Harry guessed there was a visual fight going on between the two, when a third voice entered his consciousness.

"He's cute, don't you think?"

"He looks smart," answered a fourth in a matter of fact manner.

The third voice giggled and mocked, "Of course that's what would appeal to you."

"What's wrong with thinking he's smart?" asked the fourth voice, "He's got glasses, so he must be a reader, right?"

"He's got that wicked scar, too," pointed out the third voice, "Maybe he's a fighter."

"Well of course he's a fighter," stated the fourth voice, "He is _here_."

"Yeah, too bad about that, isn't?" asked the uncaring voice from further away.

Harry heard a door open and wondered if a person had entered or left.

"So this is the new guy?"

Question answered.

The new voice continued, "And you thought to just get a good look over, eh? Does the word _privacy_ mean anything to you people?"

"Oh please, Troy," said the third voice dryly, "you're going to give _us _a lecture on privacy?"

"I won't even dignify that with an answer," said Troy lightly.

Harry felt a hand stroke the hair on his forehead playfully, before pushing his bangs back.

"He shouldn't hide his eyes," said the owner of the hand quietly.

"Would you want someone messing with your hair like that?" asked Troy.

"He's asleep," argued the third voice, "he'll never know!"

"Not for long," correctly predicted the fourth voice.

Harry felt the bed shift and realized that the owners of voice numbers three and four had gotten off his bed. Harry tried to shift his head from side to side and heard his neck muscles cracking out of stiffness. Harry tried to open his eyes but found his vision was merely blurred light anyway. He heard the sound of light footsteps approaching him.

"Welcome back," said Troy from his right, "Here drink some of this."

Harry felt a glass pressed to his lips and he opened them slowly. The water was cold and his dry and cotton tasting mouth greedily swallowed it. He felt the water trickle down his chin and down his bear chest. Harry tried to control his surprise that he was nearly naked in front of a bunch of strangers, including some attentive girls, but he ended up choking on the water anyway.

"Real eloquent," commented the uncaring voice dryly.

"I've got it from here," said a stern voice that Harry instantly recognized.

The glass disappeared and a napkin wiped at his mouth carefully. Harry felt embarrassed at having to be pampered like this. He decided to try to open his eyes again and this time saw five blurred outlines making a hasty exit out of his bedroom door. The one large figure to his immediate right stayed seated.

"Feeling better?" asked the figure to his right, Jonathan.

Harry nodded and mumbled something incoherent.

"What was that?" asked Jonathan, leaning forward to hear better.

Harry cleared his throat and said, "Glasses."

"Here you are," said Jonathan, handing the boy his much needed glasses, "fall asleep did you?"

"Huh?" asked Harry, who had always been incoherent so soon after being asleep.

"You were late for dinner," explained Jonathan, "I came up to fetch you."

Harry groaned and started to get up before remembering his current "no clothes" position. Jonathan gave no outward appearance that he understood Harry's predicament but did raise himself from his sitting position and take an interest at something outside Harry's window. Harry found his clothes laid out nicely for him on top of the soft mattress and hurriedly dressed. When Harry had finally laced up the last shoe Jonathan held the bedroom door open for him and followed him out into the main sitting room.

Harry spared a glance around the room, as if to make sure he hadn't dreamed it up, before the elevator arrived with a soft _ping_. Jonathan waited pointedly and Harry pressed the black button and the door swung open. Jonathan pulled back the metal curtain and both males stepped into the contraption. The elevator began to slowly descend and Jonathan decided to warn Harry about a few things before they arrived.

"Don't worry about the rest of them, Harry. They're a close knit bunch but they were like you once, too. Each of them was the _new_ kid and was slowly accepted. Never forget that."

Harry scrunched up his face in silent confusion. Who were the 'others' that Jonathan kept referring to and why should Harry be worried about not fitting in?

Jonathan must have correctly interpreted the look on his pupil's face because he asked, "You didn't think we were alone here did you?" Harry wasn't sure exactly how to respond. He actually _had_ thought they were alone, but apparently he had been mistaken. Harry silently fumed at the stupidity in his logic.

"_Right, Potter!"_ he mocked himself mentally, _"Big fancy island, with a huge manor with probably hundreds of rooms and you think it's just you and him! What a wanker!"_

"I guess I should also tell you that I'm not the only instructor you'll have, either," admitted Jonathan, pressing a red button on the inside of the elevator. Harry squashed himself hard against the elevator wall as they came to a sudden halt between two floors. Apparently Jonathan thought he would need more time than an elevator trip to explain everything.

"There are two other teachers here beside myself," he clarified, "who will be instructing you. I, and I alone, will be teaching you the more _deadly_ of the lessons. However that information and what goes on during our private sessions must be kept strictly between you and me. No one else must know Harry."

Harry nodded his understanding and acceptance of the terms being set out before him.

"Emma Sinclair is the only female member of our little staff here," continued Jonathan, "and she will teach you the basic skills of…" at this point Jonathan trailed off, a faint blush coming to his cheeks before continuing, "_blending in_."

Harry didn't understand why this would make Jonathan so embarrassed but whatever it was Harry wasn't so sure he would like it. As much as he wanted to interrogate Jonathan about the woman's subject, he found himself unable to force the issue in light of the man's uncomfortable attitude.

Jonathan continued in an increasingly more comfortable note, "Simon Wexler will be teaching you the basic educational systems in both the muggle and magical worlds. I assure you it will be a slight bit more exciting than your usual classes at Hogwarts have been in the past."

"You went to Hogwarts?" asked Harry.

"For a time," answered Jonathan cryptically, waving a hand in the air as if to literally brush the subject away. He continued to explain as if the interruption had never occurred, "You will also be studying with seven other pupils that my colleagues and I have hand picked. They are all about your age with the oldest being 19 and the youngest being 16. I believe that you yourself are almost of Wizarding age?"

Harry nodded and said, "July 31st is my birthday."

Jeffrey smiled and replied, "We'll keep track of it. Birthdays here are always…_special_ occasions."

Harry wasn't sure what Jonathan had meant but he was interrupted from asking by the sudden appearance of a voice calling up the elevator shaft.

"EVERYTHING ALRIGHT UP THERE?" called an anxious voice from below.

Jonathan yelled a quick yes to the inquirer below and pressed the red button a second time. Harry saw the motion and quickly braced himself as the elevator sparked back to life and together they descended to the bottom floor where Harry met his new instructors and fellow pupils.

_Russia_

_8:52 pm_

_The Same Day_

"Do you know why you are still alive, Donavan?"

On the outskirts of Russia, a woman was tied to the chair of her own apartment. Book shelves had been snapped in half, as if someone had been thrown full force into them. Books, glass and splinters littered the ground around the bookcase. A table that had once been in the center of the room now lay in four large pieces around the room. A fifth piece had been used to smash through the once beautiful bay windows. The front door to the apartment had been blown open and was currently sideways off its hinges. Not a single portrait in the room was still hanging correctly. All signs of the occupants' short but happy life had been shattered and strung across the entirety of the apartment.

A man in a violently dark robe stood before her, victorious in their apparently hostile encounter. She was bleeding, as was he, but the attacker wasn't the one stuck to a chair. The captured woman, Eliza Donavan, was a fit young woman with a fierce temper was glaring at the man.

Maddox stepped closer to Donavan and shrugged off his robe. He revealed a cotton grey short sleeved shirt and black trousers. His shirt had a large horizontal slash which was bleeding down his abdomen. He placed a finger to the wound and covered it with blood. Donavan grimaced as he tasted the blood coated finger.

Jeffrey Maddox smiled.

He stepped forward and drew a small heart on the woman's right cheek with the blood.

"Where's Jonathan?" he asked casually, not really expecting an answer from the woman. He was not disappointed when she turned her head away in silent defiance.

Maddox stepped back and bent low, picking between the wreckage until he found what he was looking for. He smiled as he stood back up and showed Donavan his prize. In his hands was a katana sword, the steel handle wrapped in purple lace.

"I believe this treasure is yours," he grinned maliciously, savoring every moment of his victory. "I always thought you'd be a bit harder to beat… guess that's why you should never meet a legend, always a disappointment."

Donavan's eyes carried from Maddox's eyes to the wounded abdomen. Maddox followed the gaze and, if possible, smiled wider.

"I see you've figured out that, I," he said, lifting his bloody shirt to show off the wound, "am exactly like you."

Her eyes widened fearfully as the wounded flesh began to fold together. The blood flowed back into the wound and the skin resealed itself in a silent hiss.

Without warning, Maddox slashed through the air with Donavan's weapon and she winced in pain. A slow trickle of blood began to flow from her shoulder. Maddox ripped open her shirt roughly. He watched in satisfaction as the woman's flesh healed in an exact imitation of his. After a final hiss filled the silence that had dominated the room he dropped the sword.

Donavan's eyes widened in shock and a small amount of hope radiated from her eyes.

"Don't think I've changed my mind about killing you," he warned, dashing her hopes of survival with less than a dozen words. A tear fell slowly from her vibrant lavender eyes. Maddox, in an uncharacteristically sympathetic move, wiped the tear away.

Bending low to face her eye to eye he explained quietly, "This is just the way life is. I am the hunter, you are the prey. I am the thief; your life is the prize. I am the attacker, you are the victim. I am the almighty executioner, while you are the unfortunate damned. Each of us plays our little part for Fate. Is this not the way a true Phoenix, like you and I, are supposed to live? Is it not, and has it not always been, survival of the fittest?"

"Don't worry," he continued placating, "It's nothing personal between you and I."

"Just between you and Jonathan," she dared to speak for the first time. Her voice, which had been noticeably absent, sounded bark-like and unnatural in the stunned silence.

Maddox, for the first time that she'd seen him, looked deeply troubled.

"Yes," he said slowly, staring somewhere into the space behind her head, "_Jonathan._"

His sudden change in character gave her the courage to finish what she'd started.

"He'll beat you!" she yelled angrily into his stunned face, "He always has and always will!"

The slap was hard but not entirely unexpected. The knife at her throat, however, was.

The blade was an intricately carved bird that made up the stone handle of the blade. It was rock grey with blood red eyes. The thin blade protruded from the mouth of the carving and bent upwards to the tip in one long slope. The point of which pierced her flesh so that only a single droplet of blood left the puncture.

"As you can see," he hissed angrily into her ear, "this is a Phoenix blade."

He dragged the knife an inch further across the skin, toward her ear. She grimaced but bravely held in a scream.

"As all Phoenix blades do," he lectured, his voice wavering dangerously, "they will make wounds that will not heal. Wounds that not even you can survive, my dear. Why your precious Jonathan has indeed bested me before, it will not happen again. Unfortunately for you, sweet Eliza, you will not be there to witness it."

A whimper passed through the barrier her lips made.

"You never did answer my question," he reminder her, "'Do you know why you are still alive, Donavan?'"

He laughed into her ear harshly as he moved the blade in deeper, "Because you, like me, have power. And now I want that power. Unfortunately for you, there's only one way to get it. I'll give Jonathan your love."

The knife silenced her cry and the night went still in mourning.

Maddox stepped away from the body and wiped the dagger on his black trousers until he felt the process begin once again. Maddox felt his toes tingle and smiled in anticipation as the sensation moved to his knees. The pressure massaged his body and comforted his muscles. His dark soul was at peace and soon the feeling encompassed his entire body like an invisible cocoon.

Orange mist began to rise out of the still body of Eliza Donavan. The mist lifted into the air above her head and lit on fire. It began to swirl and grow to encompass the ceiling. Slowly it began to separate into twelve distinct balls of levitating fire. The balls of light began to vibrate.

Maddox held out his arms as if he were riding a rollercoaster and let out a shout of excitement. Eleven of the twelve spheres flew out of the blasted window leaving Maddox alone with the final orb of fire. The orb punched into Maddox with such speed and force that he was punched through the apartment wall. In the rubble that the crash created Maddox pulled himself into a sitting position. Despite the pain, the destruction and the death the killer was still smiling.

_The Island of Aeolus_

_9:00 pm_

_The Same Day_

Harry chose to keep his eyes on the plate in front of him instead of having to face the curious looks that were being sent to him across the dinner table. Smashing his peas and sauce together seemed like a much more pleasing idea than being forced to make more polite conversation with his fellow dinner guests. So far the other two adults had inquired after what subjects he had learned so far at Hogwarts and how proficient he was at them. The man Jonathan had introduced as Simon had seemed somewhat appalled that Harry had only managed to earn one Outstanding on his O.W.L. examinations. The woman, Emma, had chided the man and welcomed Harry to the table graciously where she introduced the other students he would be working with.

Troy, Harry was never told any last names, came from Australia near the outback. He remembered vaguely hearing Troy when he was waking up earlier. There was an essence about him that Harry found comforting. It was in the boys ever available smile and the way even his navy blue eyes seemed to be grinning at Harry. Harry had also learned that the boy seemed to be only vaguely aware of how others reacted to him. At first Harry had been a bit overwhelmed by his over friendliness, but Troy had shown no signs of understanding Harry's uneasiness.

A middle-eastern girl who looked about the age of 15 wore thin silver wired glasses and nodded politely at Harry. Emma had mentioned her name was Ganesa and that she was the "brain" of the group. The compliment seemed to appeal to Ganesa. She seemed to be taking in his disheveled appearance in one smart evaluating glance before returning to her meal. Harry still wasn't sure what to expect from her.

Caden, a better built and better looking version of Draco Malfoy, smiled at Harry as he sat down. Caden, who spoke with a southern accent, was a distinct mix of clichés to Harry. His aunt had mentioned running into an American at the supermarket one day and complained about how brainless the southerners were across the pond. Caden however didn't seem to be stupid so much as uninterested in anything that the island or it's occupants had to offer. He also had heard about unhealthy inbreeding from his Aunt, yet Caden seemed to differ from that assumption. The 18 year olds arms were twice the size of any muscle Harry had and dressed like Malfoy. Thinking of Malfoy in comparison to Caden seemed a bit cruel to Harry but it did give Caden's platinum blonde hair a negative in Harry's eyes.

Mercedes and Nevada had been seated next to each other and Harry suddenly found himself lacking oxygen. Mercedes, a beautiful 19 year old young woman with ebony skin, smiled politely at him. Nevada, who didn't seem anywhere near as self-controlled as her friend, smiled flirtatiously through long eye lashes. Nevada's pearly white smile matched perfectly with her tanned skin and thin lips.

The only person who hadn't seemed to be the least bit pleasant to Harry was another young man named Charlie. Harry quickly learned from Troy that he was Mercedes' younger brother. He learned from personal experience that Charlie wasn't the easiest person to get along with and didn't even bother to try and make an effort with Harry. The condescending glares being sent his way put a damper on Harry's whole first experience with the other students. He just hoped that he wouldn't have to see Charlie very much.

"I guess now is as good a time as any," said Jonathan, "to tell you about the change in class schedules."

The youths at the table, save Harry, groaned in unison.

"Please tell me," asked Emma with a raised eyebrow, "that you didn't think nothing would change with the appearance of a new student?"

"But he's too old!" complained Charlie, "we'll be set back by months!"

"That's only if he's had any proper training," added Ganesa.

"And it doesn't look like it," said Charlie, sending a glare in Harry's direction.

"I've had six years at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry," Harry defended himself, "surely that much count for something!"

"That pathetic excuse of a school?" mocked Charlie, "Forget months, we'll have to go back _years_."

"Please try to control yourself, Charlie," warned Jonathan archly, "you certainly will not be set back years."

"But he's had no real training!" argued Charlie.

"He will be taught an advanced course by a tutor in order to bring him up to your level by the summer exams," Jonathan informed the table.

"An advanced course?" laughed Charlie, "Taught by who? We've had almost a decade more training than he's had! Who's going to be able to catch him up with us?"

Charlie's question left the table in quiet contemplation. Jonathan merely lifted his eyebrows at the table and sat back in his chair with an unmistakable look of challenge.

Harry of course knew from their conversation in the elevator earlier that evening that it would be Jonathan who would be his tutor. He wondered what the reaction would be once everyone else cottoned on. He also wondered briefly whether or not Jonathan had told the other teachers. Simon continued to chew his bread lazily while watching the argument. Emma on the other hand seemed a bit worried instead of informed.

_Wonder what that's about?_ he questioned silently.

"No," breathed a voice from across the table.

Harry turned his attention back to Jonathan and Charlie. It seemed that while he had been deciding how much Jonathan had told his counterparts that Charlie had finally realized the truth. Somehow Harry wasn't surprised that Charlie's face had developed scarlet blotches in anger.

"_You,_" he asked angrily, "are going to teach _him_?"

Once the words left his mouth the rest of the table seemed to react in slow motion. Troy was still grinning but now he was at least trying to hide it behind his napkin. Mercedes was looking questioningly at Harry. Emma had gone paler still and kept looking at some point beyond Jonathan's chair and into the distance. It seemed that, over all, the only other person seated at the table besides Charlie and Emma that had any qualms about the private lessons was Ganesa.

If possible she looked even angrier than Charlie did.

"That's not fair!" she cried.

The whole table turned their attention to her. Harry was shaken to see her face actually turning a light shade of plum.

Jonathan nodded and Ganesa screamed again in frustration, "But that's not FAIR!"

"I fail to see what fairness has to do with it," responded Jonathan calmly.

"It has everything to do with… EVERYTHING!" she responded.

"He needs help and he has the potential," said Jonathan shortly, as if that explained everything.

"Potential?" Ganesa asked as if she had had the wind knocked out of her. "I've got the best grades here and you've _never_ offered me private tutorial! Screw potential! I've got more than potential, I've got the talent and I've got the experience _now_!"

"Which is why you will be repeating the same number of classes as Harry," said Jonathan, completely aware of the bomb he had just dropped on her.

"What?"

"With your infinite wisdom," Jonathan explained smartly, "you should be able to guide Harry through the learning process. Thus he won't have to bother with any trial and error experiences. He'll be learning from the best in the class."

Emma, sensing the frustration about to erupt from within Ganesa, quickly tried to intervene.

"Of course the classes you'll be repeating in my course won't all be elementary," she said, "we'll be able to review some of the courses I believe most of you have been begging to repeat."

"You mean…" asked Troy with the largest grin Harry had seen on him yet, trailing off at the end in silent question.

Emma nodded yes and Harry felt a tangible shifting in the mood of the room. Suddenly the atmosphere had gone from extreme frustration to something more… _exciting._

For the second time that evening Harry wondered just what exactly was so special about Emma's class. She hadn't seemed to have any special powers, at leas that he had seen. She also appeared to be a nice enough woman. Yet Jonathan had nearly blushed at the mention of some of her class activities. And now the others seemed to be like little children waiting up on Christmas Eve for Santa Claus to deliver their presents.

"And on that note," said Simon, entering the conversation for the first time, "we should be off to bed."

Without question the students began to stand and gather their belongings to retire for the evening.

"If you could wait for me at the elevators, Harry," requested Jonathan.

Harry nodded while trying to ignore the identical set of glares sent his way by Charlie and Ganesa.

Harry followed the rest of the youths to the hallway outside the dinning room. Ganesa, Mercedes and Nevada turned to the left of the elevator and walked down the torch lit hallway. Charlie knocked Harry with his shoulder as he went past, but Harry let it go. His first impression with the others had already been ruined by the tutoring issue. He didn't want Jonathan to come back and find Harry fighting with one of his other students after leaving him alone for just a few minutes. Harry had had enough of adults thinking he was some helpless brat, he wasn't going to give that idea a chance to enter Jonathan's or any of the other teachers' heads. That of course didn't mean he couldn't glare at the other boy's retreating back as he walked in the opposite direction of the girls with Caden trailing behind him.

Harry heard someone chuckle behind him.

Harry turned and saw that Troy had stayed behind to talk with him.

"Planning on sneaking up on him?" the boy asked in his thick Australian accent.

"I don't attack someone when their back's turned," answered Harry.

"That's a noble idea," Troy agreed solemnly, "but good luck holding onto noble ideas while you're here."

"What does that mean?" Harry asked, with narrowed eyes.

"Things have a way of changing you here," grinned Troy cryptically, "you'll see."

"How did they change you?" asked Harry.

"I'm much more mellow now," said Troy with a straight face.

Harry's eyes bulged incredulously and Troy snickered.

"I know, I know," he said, waving his hand in the air, "how could someone possibly be more excitable than I am, right? Believe me it happens."

Harry decided to keep his opinion on that matter to himself. So far Troy was the only one who was even bothering to make an effort. Harry didn't want to alienate more than two of his new schoolmates.

"Don't worry about Ganesa," informed Troy, "she's just jealous that someone else could be getting a chance at something she can't have. It's nothing personal against you."

"What about Jonathan?"

"Yeah that might be personal."

The boys chuckled quietly.

"What about Charlie?" asked Harry, looking down the right hand corridor where the boy in question had disappeared to. "Is it just jealousy with him, too?"

"Oh, no," answered Troy, "you just piss him off."

"Gee," said Harry, "I feel so much better."

"I guess I'll see you later, then."

Harry nodded his own good-bye and Troy vanished into the darkness of the right hand corridor.

Harry entertained himself while waiting for Jonathan to show up by looking at the various portraits that surrounded the lengthy hallway. The two he found most intriguing were placed on either side of the elevator shaft.

The first was one he recognized from his younger days at Muggle public school. The gold plated notation at the bottom of the frame announced it was _The Coronation of the Virgin_ by Enguerrand Quarton. There was a brick wall that filled the entire background of the painting from border to border. The painting was divided into three sections of a crowd. The top was dominated by blue clothing clad angels. Each angel equipped with a jewel, harp, wings or a flag. They peered down on the blood red virgins, who wore towering cloth hats. Apostles stood in the bottom right section with hands clasped together, also starring at the virgins.

The second painting, on the right hand side of the elevator, was called _The Wrath of Fate_. Harry saw that the painting was actually a magical painting, yet it wasn't the normal kind of magical painting. The picture moved but continued to replay the same event over and over. At first Harry thought the painting was pitch black until noticed a faint glow in the center of the portrait. The closer Harry stepped to the portrait the farther the white light spread across the painting until finally he was almost touching it with his nose. The white light began to shoot out from the center of the painting in lightening shaped cracks. Finally the whole painting turned white and then blood red.

Suddenly a hand appeared from within the portrait and Harry could see where the palm pressed hard against the invisible barrier of the painting. Harry took a step back as a second hand appeared and a naked human body began to break free from the blood red background. Harry saw that the figure was a young boy of what he guessed was 12 years old. Tears flowed down the boy's face cleansing it of blood. The boy stopped crying as a brilliant red bird entered the painting.

The phoenix flew around the boy's head until finally landing on the boys shoulders and digging its talons painfully into the boy's skin. Blood trailed in thin lines down the boy's body but he did not appear to feel the pain. The boy continued to stare reverently into the phoenix's eyes until the bird let out a squawk and flew into the air directly above the boys head.

Harry gasped as the boy erupted into flames and the smoke covered the hovering bird from sight. When the flames stopped the smoke smothered bird lay in a pile of the boy's ashes. It appeared dead to Harry until a single wing lifted and then another. Slowly the bird rose from the ashes and flew into the sky. Lightening exploded across the sky and struck the bird down and the painting turned endlessly black again.

Harry's heart was pounding in his chest. The painting was certainly the most intense he had ever seen. He looked to the author of the painting and read the name but it registered nothing in his mind.

"Who's Eliza Donavan?" he asked to the darkness.

"Harry?" asked a voice from behind him.

Harry turned and saw Jonathan waiting for him in the archway between the dining room and the hallway. Harry was about to say something about the time when Jonathan's eyes widened and he walked quickly to Harry. Harry wondered what he had done until he noticed Jonathan was looking at the portrait he had just been viewing.

"Did you watch it?" he asked, not looking at Harry.

"Unfortunately," replied Harry.

_Why does he look so nervous?_

"Are you alright?" asked Harry.

"I'm fine," he said, still not looking at Harry, "Go and find Emma or Simon. They should still be in the dining hall."

It took a moment for Harry to register he had just been given an order. Jonathan seemed to think he was being stubborn because he finally turned to Harry and added, "Please."

Harry nodded and passed through the archway. Emma was still seated in the same chair but Simon was at the liquor cabinet Harry had noticed earlier. Simon turned as Harry entered and raised his eyes in silent question.

"Jonathan asked for you," he said in answer to the unspoken question.

Emma turned sharply in her chair, having not heard him enter the dining room.

"Where is he?" she asked tiredly.

"In front of the elevator," he answered, before deciding it was important to add, "He was looking at the weird painting by the elevator."

Simon dropped the glass of brandy he had just poured for himself and was running past Harry within a second. Emma took a moment longer to push her chair back but was out of the room before Harry had even thought to follow. When he reached the hallway Emma and Jonathan were speaking quickly to each other. Simon was further down the hallway looking out the open doors that led to a balcony over looking the ocean.

Jonathan was the first to notice Harry.

"Harry," he said pleasantly yet unable to hold in the worry his face betrayed, "I'm feeling a bit under the weather. Perhaps we could continue tonight's discussion tomorrow morning?"

Harry got the hint and started walking back to the elevator.

"Goodnight," he said, but the teachers had already turned away from him.

Harry reached the elevator and was about to press the 'up' button on the elevator when a hand grabbed him hard. The hand pulled him around the corner and Harry almost shouted in surprise before a hand closed his mouth tightly. He followed the hand to a face and realized it was Mercedes that had grabbed him. She put a finger to her lips to indicate he should be silent. Harry nodded that he understood and she released him.

"What's going on?" he whispered.

"Wait," she said and peaked around the side of the corner into the main hallway. Harry stood behind her and waited for her to tell him what was going on. When a minute passed with no explanation he asked her again.

She rolled her eyes and pulled him towards the corner. She bent him down towards the ground and looked around the corner from above him. He followed suit and his eyes widened at the sight. Emma had pulled her wand and was aiming it at Jonathan who looked like he was meditating. Harry wondered why she would do such a thing and why Simon, who was still on the balcony, had yet to do something about it.

Should Harry do something? Was this some kind of test or something?

Simon finally walked back into the hall and shouted to Emma, "It's coming!"

_What was coming?_ Harry thought.

Jonathan finally came out of his trance and he looked very nervous.

"What is it?" he whispered to Mercedes.

"You'll see," she said shortly, her eyes wide and anticipatory.

Harry turned his attention back to the scene unfolding before him. Emma began conjuring pillows behind Jonathan while Simon began casting spells at the paintings and furniture in the hall.

"What's he doing?" Harry asked.

Mercedes must have decided that waiting was just not something Harry was good at because this time she answered, "Placing protection charms."

"Protection charms?" he asked, "Protection from what?"

"From that," she whispered.

Harry turned back to look into the corridor and wondered what Mercedes had meant. He didn't see anything in the hall that was remotely dangerous.

"Where is it?" he asked confused.

Mercedes sighed and whispered, "Outside."

Harry looked down to the end of the hallway where the doors to the balcony were still open. Beyond the balcony he saw something floating towards the doors. It was a circle of brilliant orange flames that seemed to be on a direct impact course with the manor at an impossible speed.

Simon flung himself against the side of the wall as the flames entered the hall through the balcony. Emma hurled herself through the archway into the dining room. It seemed the only one that hadn't moved was Jonathan who seemed to want to be hit. Harry opened his mouth to scream in warning but Mercedes put a hand in front of it again. The sphere flew directly _into_ Jonathan's chest and he screamed in pain. The force of the collision propelled him through the air and onto the pillows that Emma had conjured. Jonathan's pillow carried him backwards down the long hallway and smashed into the wall at the other end. Emma and Simon rushed out of their hiding places and raced to their fellow teacher's aid. In their rush to help Jonathan they never noticed Mercedes and Harry in the darkened corridor.

Harry rushed into the hall to help but Mercedes caught his hand and held him back. He turned back, confusion written across his face, but she shook her head no. Her eyes pleaded with him not to draw attention to them. He looked back down the corridor to his injured mentor and then back at Mercedes.

"Please," she mouthed to him.

He took one last look at Jonathan before allowing Mercedes to lead him away from the corridor. Mercedes made sure that they stuck to the shadows and after what felt like an infinity of rights, lefts and stairwells they arrived at an alcove. A statue of a troll much like the one Harry, Ron and Hermione had immobilized in their first year occupied the space. Mercedes bent low to the right foot of the monstrous figurine and pulled back the big toe. The troll began to climb into the ceiling revealing a revolving staircase much like the one that led to Dumbledore's private office. Mercedes and Harry stepped on and together traveled up into the manor.

_Apparently Jonathan was wrong in thinking there was only one elevator per each side of the house_ thought Harry.

The troll finally came to a halt in a pitch dark room.

Mercedes stepped out onto the landing and Harry followed suit. A second later and the troll began to climb down to its original level.

"Did he see it?" asked a new voice from the darkness.

"Yes," answered Mercedes, taking Harry's hand in her own.

"And?" asked the voice.

"He's fine," Mercedes answered the voice and giving Harry's hand a tight squeeze.

"Good."

As if the word were a trigger word, torches flickered on around the room. Every one of the students was watching them. Mercedes had dropped his hand the instant the first torch erupted but Harry could have sworn he saw Troy smirking at him.

"Come on," said Charlie gruffly, turning away and exiting out of a doorway.

Harry realized that it had been Charlie that Mercedes had been talking to.

"What's going on?" he asked Mercedes.

"A little hazing tradition," answered Troy.

Harry swallowed nervously.

Troy chuckled and said, "We all did it, Harry. Don't look so worried."

Harry nodded and followed the group out of the same doorway that Charlie had left through.

Harry felt the warm night air bath his skin the second he stepped through the door. They were standing on the roof of the tall manor. Charlie was standing on the corner edge of the far roof. Harry and the group joined him and Troy pointed to the pole that marked the edge of the roof. Harry looked closer and noticed that a thick wire connected the top of the pole and fell diagonally into the forest below. Caden opened the bag he had been carrying around and pulled out a handful of thick straps.

Harry suddenly had a sneaking suspicion that he knew what they were about to do.

Charlie took the first strap and looped it around the wire. Without warning Charlie jumped off the side of the roof and allowed the momentum and gravity to carry him down the wire and into the dark forestry below.

Harry's throat went dry.

One by one the rest of the group descended to the ground outside the manner boundries through the same means of transport. Some, like Caden, only used one hand. Others, like Ganesa, hooked their feet around the wire as well for extra support. Finally it was just Mercedes and Troy left with him.

Troy held out a belt for him and said, trying his best to look serious, "Do or die."

Mercedes slapped his arm.

Harry took the strap and wrapped it securely around the wiring. He held on tight and wondered what would happen if he chickened out.

_Forget that!_ he thought _what happens if I die?_

Harry closed his eyes, took a deep breath and plunged into the abyss.

_Ottery St. Catchpole_

_11:51 pm_

_The Same Day_

Bellatrix Lestrange looked into the sky where the clouds had begun to part to reveal a full moon. She looked into the crowd as a few cloaked figures began to vibrate at the appearance of the moon. Their outlines became rigid and stone-like before falling to the ground and the screaming began. That had always been her favorite part of watching the werewolves turn. Death Eaters were already beginning to place imperius curses on the beasts in order to control them for the night. Bellatrix still didn't understand why they had to use the mutts this time, but their master had commanded and so they would obey.

Bellatrix felt a presence behind her and turned to see Fenrir Greyback standing beside her.

"You survived, then?" she asked.

"Disappointed?" he returned with a snort.

Truth be told Bellatrix _was_ disappointed that the beast had been allowed to live after failing so miserably. Fenrir had returned to them earlier that evening where he had immediately been interrogated by the Dark Lord. She had heard screams coming from her lord's chamber so she knew the werewolf had at least been punished.

"What did he use?" she asked.

"Silver," he said shortly.

Although Fenrir seemed discontented she knew better. The werewolf, she had to admit, was like her. The pain was part of the pleasure of serving the Dark Lord; the harsher the punishment, the stronger the pleasure. There were few in the Inner Circle that understood the idea, and the werewolf was definitely one of them.

"He had help," he said abruptly.

Bellatrix kept her confusion out of her face as she tried to understand what the werewolf was talking about. As a Death Eater you learned never to reveal too much about what you don't understand, otherwise competitors can use it against you. Likewise, you never reveal too much about what you _do_ understand; otherwise they'll kill you for it.

"Who helped him?" she asked.

"Someone new," the wolf growled, "someone different."

"Problems transforming?" she asked lightly. She knew that as an older and more experienced werewolf, Fenrir could control when he changed between human and beast. Few had ever been as successful with it as he was.

"I can only keep it off for so long once the moon comes into play," he responded, each of the words said in a deeper tone.

Bellatrix walked away once the transformation had gone into full swing and began looking for her master.

She walked over a small hill in the distance where she saw yellow light illuminating the outline of the hill. As she crossed the peak she stopped to admire the sight below her. A tall figure with blood red eyes was performing one of the most advanced acts of the Dark Arts. Few were powerful enough to survive performing it, and her Lord was the last alive of the few. Her black heart swelled with pride.

Voldemort was holding one hand towards the moon and the other stretched out straight ahead of him towards the rows of gravestones that lined the countryside. Latin was pouring from his lips in ethereal hisses. His eyes were glowing yellow instead of red and his face was contorted in pain. A young Death Eater that Bellatrix assumed was a new recruit stood naked and shivering behind the towering figure of her lord.

A moment later Voldemort's shoulder's slumped and he fell to his knees. Bellatrix would have run to his side in an instant at this sign of weakness but experience told her to wait. Voldemort used his remaining strength to turn sideways and pointed one hand at the naked recruit and a thin yellow beam shot from his hand and into the young males mouth.

Bellatrix heard a gasping sound and sighed in disappointment. The youth these days had no will to die for a cause anymore. She found it all rather pitiful and disappointing herself.

It took less than a minute for the recruit to die and by then Voldemort could stand without assistance. The Dark Lord looked to the hill and waved her forward and Bellatrix followed his lead. Voldemort sat upon one of the headstones and began giving her instructions.

Bellatrix sat the corpse up straight and magically held it there with binds. Voldemort removed a dagger from within his black robes and levitated it to Bellatrix. She cut symbols into the decaying flesh and the wounds became a puss yellow. In the moonlight the wounds were illuminated against the pale moonlight grotesquely.

When the last carving was made Bellatrix stepped back and handed the dagger back. A drained Voldemort panted out the last words in Latin and for an instant the moon turned puss yellow. Bellatrix held in her gasp of surprise as a pair of hand erupted from the ground and pulled the corpse beneath the surface of the earth.

"Where did it go?" she asked her lord.

"To gather his new found brethren," he answered mysteriously.

_What?_

Her question was answered less than a second later when the soil at every grave began to stir and decayed limbs began to break the surface. Slowly corpses that stretched back for years began to return to the top of the earth. Each entirely under the control of the most evil wizard the world had seen in centuries.

"Inferi," breathed Bellatrix in amazement.

"Yes," her master hissed darkly, "Here to say hello to Potter's friends."

LAST UPDATED: August 14, 2005

The Next Chapter: Only the Dark rises before the Sun

Review Responses are posted at the yahoo group.

Next Chapter will be on the group sometime next week.

Expect it at sometime the following week.

U-No-Poo

21


	3. Chapter 3

Harry Potter and the Seventh Horcrux

By, U-No-Poo

"Life is eternal, and love is immortal;

And death is only a horizon,

And a horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight."

Rossiter W. Raymond

**Chapter Three: Only the Dark Rises before the Sun**

_The Burrow_

_12:00 am_

_The Following Day: June 20th, 1997_

Molly Weasley sighed as the sound of a clock striking twelve reverberated throughout the Burrow. She turned tiredly to the small clock face that had been mounted on her kitchen wall. Every single hand was faced on a position that read, _Mortal Danger_. Molly hated how useless the clock had become since He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named had returned. How was she supposed to know where her family was when they weren't traveling?

_Of course we're in mortal danger!_ she screamed at the clock. _Isn't everyone?_

Molly heard the familiar noise of clanking metal coming from the garden shed out back where her husband had taken to tinkering with Muggle contraptions he had confiscated over the years. Molly shook her head in frustration and raised herself from the kitchen table and made some tea.

Every night at midnight for the past two weeks she waited up until midnight to deliver some warm tea to her husband. After dragging him away from the garden shed and to their bedroom she would check in on her children. Bill and Fleur had taken to staying at the Burrow while planning out the wedding. Since Bill was released from the hospital both Molly and Fleur had become much more tolerant of each other and some would almost dare to say friendly. Fred and George had even dropped by to say a quick hello and pick up some left over packages from their room. Hermione, who had come directly there from the train station, was still sharing Ginny's room. Not because there weren't enough rooms but because it was just easier to get through hard times with a friend so close to you.

Molly only wished that Ron had been so lucky as to have Harry over this summer.

So far Molly and Arthur hadn't the heart to tell any of the children about Harry's disappearance. They had decided to wait until they had more information but Molly was just plain scared. She knew how close the four of them had gotten over the years, this past one especially. It didn't take a Chief Mediwizard to know that if one of them went missing the others would go out looking for him. Molly might have already lost Harry. She couldn't live if any of the others were taken from her as well.

A loud noise erupted inside the kitchen like the Hogwarts expressed blowing it's horn and Molly hurriedly removed the spell that magically warmed the tea kettle.

After taking down Arthur and hers favorite mugs from the shelf above the sink, she levitated the kettle and poured two cups of steaming tea. Arthur's tea cup had a picture engraved on it of Bill, Charlie and Percy. Molly's had the twins, Ron and Ginny. Each of the figures waved to her from their positions on the mug, completely oblivious to the boiling water behind them. Molly remembered the Christmas that they had been given to her. As she recalled it had been the most sentimental gifts the twins ever gave her. Then again for the remaining month of December and the entire month of January she never realized they made her break out into a fit of sneezes every time she tried to take a drink from another mug. She had to threaten to publish their baby pictures in the Prophet to get Fred and George to remove the charm.

Molly opened the door to the outside and carefully balanced the two steaming mugs and a plate of cookies between her two hands. The unnaturally cold air nipped at her skin and a gust of wind nearly over turned the tray. Gripping even more tightly than before, she began to march towards the garden shed again.

She was halfway there when she heard it.

Molly paused and listened to the sound the wind had carried to her. It had been a dull rasping sound, like an animal fighting to breathe. Molly looked into the darkness around her and tried to see by the illumination of the moon. From the fifty feet that was the distance from the garden shed to the woods she could see nothing.

And yet…

Molly shook her head and tried to tell herself there was nothing in the darkness. She tried to tell herself that she was just being funny again. That this time, like all the others, her paranoia had awoken and she was just imagining things. She hoped to Merlin that this wasn't the time there really was something waiting for her in the darkness.

"Arthur?" she called hoarsely from outside the shed.

She didn't wait for a reply as she continued to walk faster and faster towards the garden shed.

"Arthur?"

The shed door opened and light poured out onto the grass. Arthur Weasley stepped out into the night and had barely uttered the question "What?" before he was pushed back inside by his wife.

"Shut the door will you, dear," she instructed him, as she set down the tray on one of the work benches.

Arthur creased his brow in confusion before shutting the door as instructed and joining his wife at the workbench.

"Warm tea, dear?" Molly asked in a high voice.

Arthur accepted the tea with a nod and asked, "Are you feeling alright, dear?"

Molly turned quickly and placed a fake smile on her lips. Arthur wasn't sure how to respond to this so compensated by sipping the hot tea and making contented noises. After a few moments of stretched silence Molly seemed to visibly relax.

"Working on anything exciting dear?" she asked him, her eyebrows raised.

Arthur immediately forgot about his wife's anxiousness and set about showing off his newly acquired items.

"This is one of their head pieces," Arthur informed his wife pulling out an odd shaped object. It had a wide rubber brim on one end that was cut open and sticking out the other end was a large wooden pole. Arthur placed it on his head, and in one swift stroke pulled down hard on the wooden pole. There was a popping noise and then it was stuck onto the crown of his head and the wooden pole bounced from side to side as he moved.

Molly wasn't sure what she was supposed to do first. Laugh out loud or feel slightly sick. It turns out that the first was the more dominant and she had to cover her mouth to hide her smirk.

"Arthur," she started coyly, "what did you say that was?"

"A headpiece!" he exclaimed brightly, the pole bouncing left and right on his head.

"Are you sure it's not called something like a 'plunger'?" she asked.

Arthur gave her a condescending smile and patted her on the head, "Of course not, dear. There's no such thing as a _plunger_! What a silly word! Wherever did you hear it from?"

Molly was about to tell him when a scream echoed across the yard.

_The Island of Aeolus_

_12:00 am_

_The Same Day_

"Are we _any_ closer?" asked Harry for the fiftieth time that night, panting harder than any of the others.

Harry had lost count of how far they'd traveled in the past three hours. After Mercedes and Troy had landed safely on the ground with the others, the group traveled deep into the woods. So far Charlie maintained that they were making progress and that their destination was just "somewhere around the bend". Harry was starting to believe that the 'hazing ritual' was making him walk around the island all night long like a fool.

"Wait!"

Ganesa, who had been walking in front of Harry all night, had stopped so suddenly at the command that Harry had nearly plowed right into her. Harry really didn't need another reason for her to hate him right now.

Charlie, who had ordered the stop, looked around the trail they'd been following and said, "Stay here and rest for a minute."

Harry immediately dropped gratefully onto a large boulder on the side of the trail. In three hours of hiking they'd had two breaks in all. Each was five minutes long and usually just made him more tired than before. His muscles cried out in pain as Harry massaged them. The others began to take seats on the ground or tree branches. Harry closed his eyes and laid his back down on the boulder.

He wiped the sweat that had been building above his brow away and listened to the sound of the night. He heard crickets croaking to each other and birds twittering love notes to one another. A slight wind tickled his skin and he sighed contentedly.

A bush behind him started to shake violently.

Harry sat up quickly and looked around the side of the boulder to the bush that had moved. In the moonlight he could see a bird nipping at one of the berry that grew there. Harry started to laugh at himself and turned to tell the others when he stopped.

There was no one in sight.

The fingers of panic began to massage his spine and he looked frantically along the trail. There were no packs left behind, no straps, and no sign of where they had gone to. Then he heard laughing from somewhere outside of the wooden trail. Coming from the same direction that Charlie had disappeared to.

For the second time in under a minute Harry felt like a fool.

He pushed through the brush and continued to follow the noises of teens until he reached the final layer of the woods. Harry pulled back the heavy brush and stepped into the most beautiful scene he'd ever witnessed.

Moonlight was reflected in the turning waters of a small lagoon. The water was so crystal clear that Harry could practically see the fish swimming. The sand was pearl white and almost completely undisturbed. Trees, hills, brush and a large rock face hid the lagoon from the rest of the island and made the entire area look like a hidden treasure. The only signs of life other than fish were the six swimming bodies in the water and their discarded clothing forming a line down the beach.

"It's great isn't it?" asked a quiet voice from behind him.

"You like to sneak up on people don't you?" asked Harry, turning to see Troy, clad only in his shorts, grinning beside him.

"No, you just happen to be in front of me all the time," he said smirking.

"So, is this the hazing?" asked Harry, looking back at the laughing people in the water, "cause it sure doesn't look very scary."

"Feel like going swimming?" asked Troy.

Harry shook dropped the robe he'd been carrying around the whole night and stripped off his oversized jeans, socks and shoes.

"This way," answered Troy, inclining his head to the right.

Harry and Troy walked down the beach, following the trail of clothes that marked the pathway to their destination. Troy led Harry to the side of the rock face where steps had been carved into the wall. Troy began to climb them and Harry followed, struggling at the more poorly made ones. It seemed Troy was either naturally graceful or had climbed the rock many times before because he didn't come across a single step he couldn't handle.

When they reached the top troy led Harry over to a jagged edge facing the lagoon. Harry could just make out the other six students swimming beneath them. Harry wasn't really that worried about the whole height thing. He'd ridden a broom hundreds of feet up into the air with no harness or safety net. A jump from the top of a ledge into water paled in comparison to a fall from a broom onto the hard ground.

"Any tricks?" he asked Troy.

Tory smirked and replied, "Just take a deep gulp of water when you first get under."

Harry turned to look at Troy confusedly, "What?"

"Just remember," said Troy before he threw Harry off the side of the ledge.

Harry yelped in surprise and watched as the water rushed up to meet him within seconds.

Harry felt the impact hard against the side of his body and then he was consumed by soothingly cool liquid. Harry held his breath as he the momentum of the fall and gravity carried him further and further down into the lagoon. When Harry finally stopped his descent he started to frantically propel himself upwards towards the surface. His lungs were burning with the lack of oxygen and he pushed even harder into the water.

The surface was still a good ten feet above him when instinct forced him to try to breath and he inhaled a mouthful of water.

Harry started to splutter until he realized that he was breathing regularly… underwater.

_What?_

Harry took another mouthful of the clear water into his lungs but it was more like he was breathing. Harry started to laugh at the discovery and a collection of orange scaled fish began to gawk at him, which made Harry laugh even harder.

A hand tapped Harry's shoulder and he turned to see Troy behind him waving him to the surface. Harry nodded and floated languorously to the air filled world above the sea where there were five faces grinning at him and two merely amused.

"How," asked Harry incredulously, "is this possible?"

"I thought you were a wizard," mocked Charlie with a grin from his right, "Don't you know that anything's possible with magic?"

"Magic did this?" asked Harry stupidly.

"What did you think it was the freaking Easter bunny?"

Charlie backstroked away from the group and disappeared further along the lagoon.

Normally Harry would be upset with himself for being such an easily set up fool or at least be angry with Charlie but he was just too… _happy_ to be upset. Which he found both weird and mildly entertaining.

Troy seemed to understand his predicament because he said, "It's the water. It's got so much magical juice in it, that there's a side effect."

"Side effect?" asked Harry, not really concerned.

Troy grinned, "Euphoria."

Harry laughed before diving below the surface to enjoy the rest of the night in peace, blissfully unaware of the horrors that were occurring to the people he'd come to call family…

_The Burrow_

_12:10 am_

_The Same Day_

Ginny Weasley could not fight off the feeling that something was horribly, horribly wrong. Harry had promised to send her an owl that night to let her know that he had arrived safely at Privet Drive but it had yet to come. She had been seated on the sill of her bedroom window since nightfall, waiting for Hedwig. Ten minutes into the next day, according to her bedroom clock, and she was still waiting.

Ginny had fallen asleep earlier that evening and had been awoken by the wind hurling itself up against the glass window. At first she thought that she'd been dreaming because of the ugly color of the moon tonight, but none of her dreams had ever been this boring. She had just been about to give up on Hedwig and Harry for the night, when movement had caught her eye.

There had been a shadow on the ground moving towards the greenhouse that she recognized as her mothers. Ginny knew that her mother had been worried terribly about them all since Hogwarts was attacked and Dumbledore had died. She'd even over heard her father telling Bill and Charlie something about _nightmares_ and _insomnia_. Suddenly not wanting to be alone Ginny looked over at the cot that was supposed to be holding a sleeping Hermione Granger.

Ginny smirked knowingly because she, unlike the rest of her family, knew exactly where Hermione had gone that evening. Ginny would bet ten galleons that there were _two_ people in Ron's room and yet still one empty bed. Ginny knew that things hadn't progressed _that_ far between her brother and her friend but they were getting closer. Ginny's mind flashed to Harry and her at Dumbledore's funeral before another wave of loneliness filled her.

Ginny threw on her Gryffindor red nightgown and tiptoed quietly out of her room and down the hall. She put her but on the banister and slid with a perfect balance down the railing and fell to her feet like a cat on the landing. She slid her slippers on and traveled quickly into the kitchen. She took in the sight of the kettle on the table, two mugs missing and the half empty box of cookies before deciding she had a good twenty minutes before her mother got back.

Ginny opened the door to the fridge and peered around at the different items available. After mentally crossing out the majority of the leftovers and the suspicious looking liquids mark "WWW" she grabbed the milk. She carried the carton over to the sink where various pans and dishes were being scrubbed by floating towels and sponges. She waited until a small drinking glass had finished being cleaned before snatching it and dodging the disgruntled towel that had just finished cleaning it.

"You snooze, you lose," commented Ginny to the angry little washcloth as it went back to scrubbing a new object.

Ginny grinned and poured herself a glass of milk while silently murmuring the words to the Weird Sister's latest hit, _The Lockness is Loveless_. Ginny sipped the glass slowly while looking out the kitchen window towards the garden shed. The door was closed and Ginny definitely did _not_ want to think about what her parents might be up to in there. After all her father did call her mum, _Mollywobbles._

The bush outside the window shook for a second and the glass Ginny was holding paused on her lips. She waited for another minute before deciding it was the wind and went to take another sip when the bush shook even more than before.

_Maybe it's Hedwig_ she thought, _or maybe it's not…_

Ginny shook her head to dislodge the thought from her brain and leaned closer to the window. The shaking stopped almost immediately. She looked left and right and then tried to look straight down into the brush but she saw nothing. She was just about to pull her head back away from the window when a hand collided loudly against the glass, smashing it completely.

Ginny jumped backwards in shock, knocking the glass of milk to the floor with a crash. The hand gripped onto the window frame and hoisted the rest of the body into sight.

A yellow colored arm that was covered in dirt reached into the room followed by the front half of an old woman. The face was wrinkled and_…moldy_. The woman's grey hair fell in long tendrils down her face, neck and shoulder. The fingernails were like long spikes and the teeth of the woman were crooked and wooden looking. Dirt fell from the woman's mouth and nostrils into the sink below it. The elderly woman made a rasping noise and stretched out her arm in a desperate attempt to reach Ginny. The woman missed and she collapsed through the open window and onto the kitchen floor.

The woman had no body below the midpoint of her stomach.

Ginny opened her mouth to scream but nothing came out but a soft whisper.

She began to backup towards the kitchen door that led into the living room until she felt herself bump into something that wasn't a wall. She turned and let out another silent scream that only she and the person she had bumped into could hear.

Ron Weasley grabbed his sister in a comforting hug before pulling her roughly towards the staircase. At the same time Hermione Granger came down the stairs and turned a questioning look at the pair. Ginny tried to tell her about the kitchen but eventually couldn't say anything at all. Ron held her tighter and nodded his head to go back up the stairs. Hermione said nothing but moved to the side to let the siblings pass. Her curiosity peaked she traveled the rest of the way down the stairs and stepped into the kitchen.

Hermione Granger did not suffer the same problems that Ginny Weasley did when it came to screaming.

_The Island of Aeolus_

_Phoenix Time_

_The Same Day_

Darkness surrounded him and yet he was still… aware. He was aware of Emma and Simon's continued presence around him. He was aware of everything that had happened to him that night and all the nights before. But most of all he was aware of what was going to happen next.

Jonathan felt the fire that had consumed his body only moments ago enter his consciousness. The sheer power of the Phoenix Fire ripped his mind from his body and soul. Normally such an act wouldn't be counted as a blessing, at least not in Jonathan's mind. But when it came to Phoenix Fire, Phoenix Vision or Phoenix _anything_ than nothing was ever exactly normal. Jonathan only counted this as a blessing because if his mind were still attached to his body, than he'd pass out and die due to the pain coursing through his system.

Jonathan opened his mind's eye and saw the world come to a screeching halt. He was still in the main hall of the manor, looking up at the ceiling from the flat of his back. Concentrating hard on the movement, Jonathan was able to lift his consciousness from his own body. Were there another Phoenix in this place and time they would only see him as a ghost rising from his own body. He walked to the nearest clock and followed the long and short hand to the numbers they were currently pointing to.

10:00

Jonathan turned around and stared at the montage in front of him. His own body lay unconscious and unoccupied between his colleagues. Emma, who had knelt down beside his collapsed body, was holding the back of his forehead in the crook of her arm and forcing a washing cloth onto his forehead. Simon, who was still standing, had been frozen in the middle of turning a page in the large book he'd been looking through. Jonathan read the title, _The Home Healer's Guide: 1997 Edition._

Jonathan had, thankfully, very rarely had experienced this Phoenix Vision since he had discovered his own Phoenix abilities. He knew that the Phoenix Visions only ever became this strong after another Phoenix had been killed. This was the process during which the fallen Phoenix's power was transferred to the remaining Phoenix's.

The Phoenix Visions would show not only the future but the past and present of the world. The first part of the visions would always be the past, then present and finally the future. The past and present a Phoenix could never change, but the future they could. The only reason a Phoenix received the visions of the past and present was so that they could understand those that would happen in the future.

It was in one of these very same visions that Jonathan had foreseen the confrontation with the Werewolf and how Harry would save him. It was in that vision he had seen what the future would hold for Harry and exactly how Jonathan was to play a part in seeing that future come to be.

The world around him shifted and the main hall of the manor evaporated from view. Instead it was replaced by a demolished living room.

Jonathan was standing behind a man in the center of the room. The man was crouched low behind a chair. As Jonathan rotated himself around the room with his mind he saw that someone was tied to said chair.

_This must be the fallen Phoenix_, he thought.

Jonathan focused his attention on the face of the captive first, then the killer. His heart turned cold as he saw who was bound to the chair. His whole mind went frozen at the sight of the killer.

"Eliza," he gasped breathlessly.

As if the name were a cue, the scene in front of him unfolded. Words and phrases called out to him but his grief blurred them all. Seeing the mistreatment of a woman he'd once loved by the man he'd once been brothers with filled his being with anger. Only one line ever did make it through his mental barrier of grief.

"_I'll send Jonathan your love…"_

As Maddox spoke the words he looked up to Jonathan's exact position as if he knew that Jonathan would be standing there. Maddox's eyes took on a wild expression and Eliza screamed. As the blade made a blood red line across Eliza's neck, Maddox never took his eyes off of Jonathan.

This had nothing to do with sweet Eliza. Sure it had brought Maddox one step closer to his ultimate goal, but that was not the reason he had chosen to go after Eliza. The entire night had been for Jonathan's viewing pleasure and Maddox's entertainment. The whole night had been Maddox's sick way of sending a message to Jonathan.

_I'm coming, Jon,_ Jonathan could almost here Maddox saying to him,_ and no one can stop me._

Jonathan reached out a hand to caress Eliza's limp face with, but before he could reach it the world shifted yet again.

Jonathan was back on the island again, he was sure of it. This time he was on a high cliff looking down at his students who were laughing and swimming in the water below. Behind him Harry and Troy were talking to each other, large grins plastered on their faces.

Jonathan smiled, happy that Harry seemed to have made at least one friend out of the group. He made a mental note to remember that when it came time to choosing new training partners.

The world shifted again and Jonathan was at the beginning of a long dirt road. Moonlight was covered by tall trees yet he could still make out a house in the distance. He wondered briefly why he was being shown this place at this time. Was he being shown where Maddox was hiding? Is this some safe house Jonathan was supposed to use sometime soon? Or was it the home of Maddox's next victim?

Jonathan's question was answered less than a second later as a figure limped past his right shoulder.

Jonathan recognized the limping gate and the decayed flesh for what it was. Turning to look behind him, Jonathan gasped as he saw a village being consumed by a mass of Inferi and Death Eaters. People were fleeing from their homes and dodging curse after curse. The Inferi took sharp, desperate lunges at the running villagers. Jonathan wagered a guess at approximately 100 Inferi and a possible 30 Death Eater count. At least 2/3 of the Inferi were breaking down doors to homes and feasting on victims, while the other 1/3 were walking up the dirt path towards the house on the hill.

Jonathan followed the Inferi up the hill where he saw three figures, whom the Inferi were ignoring completely, standing in the front yard. The one in the center at vibrant puss yellow eyes and was muttering Latin at the moon. The ground around them starting to shake and a pulsating green bubble formed around the property, encompassing the home and those inside.

There was a commotion at the edge of the bubble and Jonathan saw Auror's firing spells at the bubble, trying to force their way through it. The Inferi, however, seemed to have no problem passing in and out of the emerald bubble though it was completely solid to the Death Eaters and Auror's.

Jonathan heard a loud growl erupt from the woods behind the Aurors. His hand went directly to where he stored his Kattana sword before he realized that he was only a spectator in the vision. The Auror began to scramble away from the woods and Jonathan was forced to watch as no less than a dozen fully transformed werewolves began to stalk them down. Only five were quick enough to apparate out of the scene. The others fell down and never got up again.

The world shifted him from the attack to a scene that was it's polar opposite. Instead of midnight, it was midday. Jonathan was standing in an open field that he recognized as on the island. His future self was dressed in jeans and a white collared t-shirt that was unbuttoned. In the air, a figure flew at a tremendous and dangerous speed. The flyer was accomplishing stunts that even Jonathan might feel nervous about.

The figured landed and Jonathan recognized him as Harry, but different. This Harry had shorter hair and clothes that actually fit him. Not to mention looked almost… _happy._ Something Jonathan didn't think Harry had been capable of before tonight.

Future Harry smiled excitedly at Future Jonathan.

"What do you think?" Future Harry asked.

_About what?_ Jonathan wondered.

But then the world twisted and he found himself in complete darkness again. This time he felt a wet towel being placed on his forehead and heard crinkled pages being turned.

Jonathan sat up, once again in his own body, and smiled at his two friends.

Emma mumbled something like, "Gave us a good scare."

But Jonathan wasn't listening. Instead he looked at the clock in front of him and saw it read: 12:45.

"You were out longer this time," mentioned a worried Emma.

"What did you see?" asked Simon.

Jonathan gave them the basic details of the Phoenix Vision while he summoned his cloak and weapons. He did, however, manage to keep Eliza's death to himself. He would tell them tomorrow when he had the time to sit them down and give the news the justice and respect it deserved.

"The kids are at the lagoon," he informed them.

"What?" cried Eliza, looking up at the ceiling as if she wished she could see through the stone and into their bedrooms.

"I'll be back soon," he told them, "but don't wait up."

"We'll get the kids," promised Simon.

"Wait a few hours," Jonathan requested, "let them have some time to bond. We can always nail them to the wall in the morning."

"Where will you be?" asked Emma, as she watched him strap the large sword onto his shoulder.

"No idea," confessed Jonathan, "Fate points, I jump."

He closed his eyes and pictured the dirt road he'd seen before in his vision. He felt the pull of the wards surrounding the Island tugging at him. He put more force in his Phoenix Apparition and instantly his feet collided with the ground.

He opened his eyes and looked at the street sign he'd failed to notice earlier. He reached out his arm and pulled the sword out of its shoulder sling.

"Congratulations, Ottery St. Catchpole," he whispered to the air, "it's your lucky night."

_Inside The Burrow_

_12:55 am_

_The Same Day_

"Hold the damn door!" Ron Weasley shouted to Hermione and Ginny.

"We're trying to _Ronald_," shrieked Hermione flippantly as she put her full weight against the door. Ginny had braced her feet against the side of the bed and used it as leverage to hold the door shut with her back. In the hallway outside at least two dozen Inferi were banging against the door. Ron grimaced at hearing Hermione call him by his full first name but kept on with his task.

He was frantically ripping apart his parent's bedroom looking for either of his parents' wands or a weapon. They'd thought their parents had been asleep so they'd run into the master bedroom hoping for an adult to defend them, only to find it empty. Ron knew his mother had been freaked out about a possible attack this summer and had purchased some kind of defensive device. So far he'd been disappointed with his seemingly flawed vision into his mother's paranoia.

"We know she bought something!" cried Ginny frantically.

"But where'd she put it?" asked Ron, moving to the closet and ripping open the door.

"Did you check the board under the bed?" asked Ginny, now biting her lip in the struggle to keep the door closed.

Ron's head appeared from inside the closet.

"What board under the bed?" he asked.

"Oh honestly, Ron" sighed Ginny, "Haven't you ever gone snooping in here?"

"What?" he asked, a disgusted look on his face, "why'd I ever want to go snooping in a room where mum and dad… do that… _stuff_?"

Hermione would have laughed if the situation hadn't been so dire.

"Oh honestly," cried Ginny, "you can't even say it can you?"

"Not the time children," reminded Hermione as a particularly rough shove against the door nearly toppled both her and Ginny.

"Right," said Ron as he left the closet door open and dropped to the floor, disappearing under the bed.

Ginny heard him banging against various floorboards and saw pieces of objects being pushed out from under the bed. A minute later and Ron re-appeared above the bed looking frustrated.

"I can't find it."

"Ugh," Ginny screamed frustrated to wits end with her brother, "Switch with me!"

Ron and Ginny swapped places and this time Ginny disappeared under the bed.

Ginny squinted in the darkness, trying to find the right board. She drew her hand across the cracks in the floor until she found the one that was just a little more pronounced than the others. She grinned in satisfaction as she pried it open and felt into the hole. She felt a long object in her hand and a small rubber ball.

Grabbing both she sat on her parent's bed and recognized the long object as a spare wand. She aimed it at the door and said, "_Colloportus!"_

The door stopped shaking and Ron and Hermione moved away from it quickly.

"What now?" Ginny asked, looking between Hermione and Ron.

The pair looked at each other and silently communicated that they had no idea what to do next.

"Harry usually did the next part," said Hermione.

"Which was what exactly?" asked Ginny.

"Save us."

_The Village of Ottery St. Catchpole_

_1:10 am_

_The Same Day_

Voldemort smiled up at the moon as his rich emerald green shield surrounded the property referred to as "The Burrow". The shield would allow the dead to cross it and those bearing his mark, the Dark Mark, but no one else. Those foolish enough to try and cross the magical boundary would not survive the transition, and would become one of the Inferi under his control. The plan was nearly perfect, except that nothing ever went completely according to plan.

Just in case, Voldemort had the werewolves prowling the woods the stretched between the Burrow and the village below. Beyond the animals were the Death Eaters who would keep most of those trying to interfere with his plans at a standstill. Only those that survived his Death Eaters, his werewolves, and his shield would be worthy of facing him; worthy of dying at his hand.

The Inferi had already trapped the elders of the Blood-Traitor family in their shed. It wouldn't be much longer until the shed was ripped open and the pair became nothing more than corpses waiting to be turned into his own army. While Voldemort himself could have decimated the shed and the home with a wave of his wand, he wanted the fear to linger in the hearts of his victims. Hearing the sounds of the Dead banging their decomposing limbs against the wall of your hiding place would certainly accomplish that…

Voldemort spotted movement from the side of the shed and subtly extracted his wand from its hiding place in his robes. Bellatrix was striding forward at a quickened gait holding something round shaped in her hand. As she approached closer, he recognized the worried look in her face and the object in her hands.

Bellatrix threw the decapitated head onto the ground in front of her master's feet.

"One of the Blood-Traitors?" he asked silkily.

She shook her head and answered, "One of the Inferi."

The Dark Lord Voldemort frowned at the head lying before him, then at his servant, and finally into the woods around him. He could see no hole in the shield he had constructed, nor had he felt someone manipulating those wards.

"There's someone else here," he said to Bellatrix, "someone who entered _before_ my wards had been established."

"But no one _knew_, my Lord," she said anxiously.

"Than how do you explain it, Bellatrix?" he asked her vehemently.

"They must have anticipated the move, my Lord," she answered quickly.

"But Severus assured me that they _hadn't_, Bellatrix."

"Perhaps Severus' spy has turned on him?" she asked weakly.

To her surprise Voldemort was not angered by this notion. Instead something harsh and odd erupted from his mouth that vaguely resembled a laugh.

"How much has changed this summer, Bellatrix," he chuckled darkly.

"My Lord?" she asked nervously.

"To think that _you_ would be defending _Severus_ to _me_!"

"After the attack on Hogwarts…" she began to explain, before he cut her off.

"I understand what changed your mind, Bellatrix," he said, "Unfortunately we haven't the time to discuss such transitions in behavior."

"Of course, my Lord."

"Find Snape," he ordered her, "and detain him. Tell your husband and his brother to join me here. Tell them we have a rat that needs to be flushed out. They'll understand what they need to do."

"Yes, my master."

And with that, Bellatrix went scurrying down the hill as fast as she could and plunged into the darkness of the woods beyond.

Voldemort began to walk towards the house at a pace that showed not a care in the world for the danger he was about to encounter.

From the shadows of the house Jonathan watched the encounter. He had, as a wizard, heard of Lord Voldemort. He'd even worked against his Death Eaters during the First War. Now he'd have a chance to face him man to man. The nice part of receiving the Phoenix Visions is that he knew he'd live past tonight. The only downfall was that he didn't know in what kind of condition.

When Jonathan had used Phoenix Apparition to enter the property earlier he'd been just in time to get through the woods before werewolves could smell him. He'd taken to hiding outside the small shed until he'd spotted the plump woman walking a tea tray towards the building. He'd tried to stay as quiet and hidden as he could but the first of the Inferi to reach the grounds wasn't trying to stay hidden.

Jonathan had watched as the damned corpse walked right down the lane between the shed and the house towards the plump woman. Since the Inferi had been walking in shadows that poor woman hadn't been able to see it, but Jonathan could. Hell, he could sense the thing walking around like that.

He couldn't risk alerting the woman to his presence too soon otherwise he'd lose the element of surprise. But he also couldn't risk letting the Inferi kill her. So he did the only thing he could do… take early preventive action.

Jonathan waited until the corpse was almost in front of him before removing his weapon. He held the kattana sword low to the ground and waited until the monster was right in front of him. In one swift motion he arced his body into a standing position and kept his sword arm rising even after his body had stopped. The blade sliced through the monster's neck and Jonathan caught the body before it fell to the ground and made noise.

He looked back to where the woman with the tray had been squinting into the darkness and waited. If she had seen either him or the Inferi she would have screamed. Thus she was left with only two options. One, investigate further and venture into the shadows where she would find the two of them there. Or two, walk away into the lighted shed and play it up to her imagination.

After another moment of indecision she turned away from him and marched into the safety of the shed.

Jonathan let out the breath he hadn't realized he was holding.

Dragging the body as silently across the lawn as possible, he left it hidden behind some bushes around the back of the house. In the distance he saw the three figures from his vision start up the hill and he also took refuge behind the brush.

It'd been some time since then but he'd been forced to stay hidden until the shield went up and that woman Death Eater started her search of the grounds. Jonathan had quickly mentally classified her as a '_threat'_. All of her movements showed that she was an experienced hunter and killer. The fact that Voldemort trusted her to go on alone showed that she was capable of handling herself. Plus she had known exactly where the best hiding place would be and moved to it immediately. Unfortunately for him that had meant a quick relocation was in order.

He scaled the tree behind the brush and used it to get behind the woman Death Eater. He'd been unable to hide the corpse better and she quickly found it. Normally he'd be ashamed of himself for leaving such an obvious clue lying around like that, but this time it worked for him. She'd been so preoccupied with the body he'd been able to retake his earlier position between the shed and the house. It also afforded him a better look at the grounds and Voldemort.

Now that the woman Death Eater had reported her findings to her master she'd disappeared down the wood trails that led to the town. She'd be going to get reinforcements so he'd have to move quickly. As it was he'd still need to get around Voldemort and the Inferi without losing anyone he rescued from the house of the barn.

Jonathan didn't care much about the Inferi. To normal people they were a problem, but for magically unique beings like werewolves and Phoenix's they were pretty much ignored unless given a reason not to be. Voldemort on the other hand wouldn't be so easy. He didn't have many choices in that department. He could chose to continue being stealthy and try to sneak off the captives one at a time but that could take too much time. Besides there were no safe places to hide the ones he saved while going back for the others. The Inferi would tear them apart of the werewolves would eat them alive.

His other choice would be to strike out immediately. Voldemort and that woman Death Eater knew that someone was already there, and soon all the Death Eaters would know. Using his Phoenix abilities he could take down most of the Inferi and the Death Eaters, but a fight like that could escalate and he may not have time to save all the hostages. In fact he could lose them just as easily. The only reason that Voldemort was taking his time reaching the house was most likely to see what decision Jonathan would make.

Unfortunately he'd spent so much time debating the issue, that it was no longer in his hands.

Jonathan heard a voice behind him and he turned just in time to see a stream of dark blue magic flying towards him from the tip of a wand. He jumped out of the path of the curse but didn't miss the effects. An explosion erupted from the ground he'd just been occupying and he felt himself go flying up into the air.

Wind rippled through his hair and billowed his long cloak around him as he flew backwards and through one of the windows into the house. Glass slashed at his body and he felt pain in his back where he'd broken the window pane. He landed hard on his side inside the house. He coughed up some blood before the front door to the home blew open and a figure stepped into the doorway.

Jonathan pushed himself up into a standing position and charged further into the house as a second curse exploded right where he'd fallen. Once he was out of the sight of the front door he tried to figure out where he was. Some kind of kitchen he guessed and quickly scouted out the entry points. A side of the wall was opened up to the rest of the home and there was a kitchen door that was left wide open.

Jonathan pulled out his kattana sword and went through the open space in the wall and waited. A moment later he saw his attacker enter the kitchen and walk towards the open back door. Jonathan tried to control the lurch in his gut as he realized that his attacker was the actual Lord Voldemort. Jonathan lined up the shot with his mind's eye and as soon as Voldemort stuck his foot out the door he stepped into position.

He lifted his sword arm back behind his head and was about to throw it straight into the back of the Dark Lord's skull when a pair of hands grabbed his leg and intense pain caused him to cry out in shock. He fell to the ground as Voldemort turned to look behind him.

Jonathan looked down at his injured leg and saw that the top half of an Inferi woman had grabbed onto him. The woman had bitten into the flesh of his leg and was giving him a blood filled grin of satisfaction. He turned and saw Voldemort smirking at him the way a crocodile smirks at bird he's about to give a death roll. Jonathan wasn't stupid enough to wait for said death roll and decided to take action. As Voldemort lifted his wand and opened his mouth, Jonathan kicked the woman in the mouth and kicked his injured leg into the air.

The Inferi woman, temporarily stunned by the kick, lost her grip on Jonathan's leg and went careening through the air. A half second later the Inferi collided with the Dark Lord Voldemort and sent them both falling backwards. Jonathan didn't waste a second and grabbed onto his kattana sword before the Dark Lord hit the floor.

Voldemort saw the man grab the weapon and used the Inferi woman as a shield against the sword that flung through the air at his head. He dropped the woman onto the floor and stood up, already conjuring a ball of dark blue mist into his hand. His wand completely forgotten somewhere on the kitchen floor Voldemort had decided to use the next best thing.

Jonathan conjured a ball of flaming Phoenix Fire into his palm that lighted the whole room from its dark state. Voldemort looked hesitantly at the fire for a fraction of a second before throwing his own magical sphere at Jonathan. Jonathan lifted the Phoenix Fire in front of him and it absorbed the Dark Lord's magic in one swift move.

Voldemort smiled and said, "And here I thought only Harry Potter could thwart me."

Jonathan was about to reply when he felt something heavy collide with his backside and he went sprawling onto the kitchen floor. He turned around and saw two cloaked Death Eaters behind him, each armed with identical oak wands.

"Kill him!" order the Dark Lord.

The wizards raised their wands and Jonathan disappeared in a flash of brilliant orange flames.

The two wizards lowered their hoods and looked at each other.

"Did you…?" Rudolphus asked his brother.

The man shook his head and both turned to look at their master questioningly.

Voldemort, looking absolutely enraged, shouted, "Find him! Now!"

Both men scrambled out the kitchen door before their master decided to unleash the rest of his anger.

Voldemort looked down at the sword pierced Inferi lying beneath him. He studied the handle of the sword before ripping it out of the corpse's side. His eyes tracked over the bird featured on the handle, and the small grooves in the flat side of the blades. He'd seen the marking before but he couldn't remember where.

He pocketed the sword, summoned his wand and stormed out of the home without a second thought as to the fate of those in it or of the plans he had constructed so carefully over the past few weeks. None of that mattered anymore. He had a new enemy to focus on, one that more than rivaled Harry Potter's school friends.

_The Burrow, Master Bedroom_

_The Same Day_

_1:40 am_

"REDUCTO!"

The shout echoed off of the walls of the master bedroom, while the blast that followed carried out into the nightmare beyond.

Ginny coughed as dust and debris settled across the room and in her throat. She could hear Ron and Hermione behind her doing the same.

"That was effective," commented Ron dryly.

"Maybe not effective enough," said Hermione moving closer to the large hole that they'd blasted in the side of the room. She bent down to a small crater in the wall about four feet from the ground.

"I don't think I can fit through there," said Hermione.

"You don't have to remember?" responded Ginny, moving closer to the hole herself, "we only need one to get through and distract them.

"I still say it should be me," volunteered Ron, sounding like the overprotective brother he was at heart.

Ginny turned to face him and asked, "Can you fit through there?"

She pointed to the hole and his eyes tracked from hers to the wall and back again.

Finally he shook his head no.

"I didn't think so."

Ginny crouched down and looked out through the hole in the wall and into the next room. Of course her mother had made sure to put her room right next to the Twins' room for safety precautions. After the twins tried to give their Uncle one of their first prototypes ("Flaming Fur ball Hairpieces") they really hadn't left her much of a choice.

Then after the incident involving Hermione's black eye, the Twins had seen fit to keep their room under lock and key. Ginny wondered whether it was their guilt over Hermione's eye or the fear that their mother might make good on her threat to bin everything in their room. Either way Ginny was glad that the room had been locked up as it provided them with an escape route.

Ginny put both hand into the hole and grabbed onto the sides of the wall. Using all her upper body strength she pulled herself head first through the hole. She landed on one of the Twin's leftover boxes and prayed to Merlin himself that nothing from inside the box would go off. The last thing she needed was to tell the Inferi outside exactly where she was.

"Everything alright?" called Ron from the other side of the wall.

"Fine, thanks," she called back lightly after no firecrackers went off.

She climbed off the box and crossed the room to the windows. One thing Mom didn't know was that the twins had been using the ivy that ran vertical across the house as an escape route from their room. It led straight up to the roof and from there you could use ladder the Twins smuggled up there to get down.

Ginny opened the window and smiled as the breeze hit her face. It was good to have some fresh air, especially after tonight.

She straddled the window sill with her left leg hanging out towards the ground and her right swinging inside. She reached over to the siding and grabbed the thickest piece of ivory and siding that she could. She pulled it tight to test its strength and when she was satisfied that it would hold her, she started to climb up.

Unfortunately for her, she was wrong.

Ginny was able to climb for approximately three seconds before the vine and the siding snapped off and she fell to the ground screaming.

Next Chapter: A Walk in the Woods will premiere sometime later tonight.

Author's Notes:

Thank you all for waiting so patiently for this update. RL has tormented me enough for this week and is continuing to do so as we speak. Thus the double update will be finished tonight and uploaded before midnight tomorrow. Hope to hear from you all in a review. And for those who aren't aware my beta is out for awhile so these chapters are beta'd only by me and that's not saying much.

LAST UPDATED: 09/11/05


	4. Chapter 4

Harry Potter and the Seventh Horcrux

By, U-No-Poo

"Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family.

Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one."

Jane Howard

**Chapter Four: A Walk in the Woods**

_The Burrow_

_The Same Day_

_1:30 am_

Jonathan watched as the Dark Lord Voldemort followed his two worshipers out the kitchen doorway and into the night beyond. He raised his wand and a fraction of a second before the killing curse graced his lips an explosion from the upstairs caught his attention. His gaze and wand left the kitchen door and lifted to the ceiling above. The floorboards creaked beneath his feet as he walked to the staircase in the main hall and slowly marched up them.

He silenced the floor with a thought and stalked upwards, listening carefully for any clue as to what horrors he would be dealing with next. He reached the platform connected to the stairs, and listened intently for where the sounds were coming from. A sharp wheezing and grunting was coming from the hallway to his left.

"Lumos," he said in less than a whisper.

A small milky white light erupted from his wand. Ahead of him there were three Inferi crouched around a bedroom door that had yet to notice him. In fact, they seemed to be more preoccupied with trying to squeeze themselves, hands first, through the crack under the door. The wooden door was splintered from the Inferi's previous attempts to break down the door with mere brute force.

Jonathan kept his wand arm trained on the three Inferi while he lifted his other arm and summoned a flowing sphere of Phoenix Fire. The light from the ball illuminated the rest of the corridor, revealing an open doorway at the end of the hall where five more Inferi sat in the darkness. Eight pairs of eyes turned their attention on him and Jonathan allowed himself to feel a final flash of fear before eight pairs of legs charged at him.

Jonathan reacted instantly, throwing the flaming ball at the nearest Inferi and watched as he disappeared into a pile of ash. At the same moment, he spun his wand in a half circle and shouted, "CONFECTIDA!"

Sparks began to fly out of the tip of his wand like rockets, shooting their way towards his attackers. The two nearest Inferi paused at the sudden bright lights and panic flashed across their stunned faces. Jonathan knew that both fire and bright lights were equally as panic inducing to Inferi and he took advantage of that fact.

While the Inferi were struggling with what to make of the sparkling lights, Jonathan pocketed his wand and conjured Phoenix Fire into both his hands. A second later two more Inferi were nothing more than smoke and ashes on the wooden floor.

Jonathan's palms rearmed themselves with Phoenix Fire and this time Jonathan didn't waste them on just two Inferi. He shoved his arms out sideways and called for more energy. There was a flash and then a brilliant burning flame of Phoenix Fire was connecting the already burning spheres in each hand. Jonathan lunged forwards with his arms and the trail of fire streaked horizontally at the remaining Inferi, burning each of their corpses to ash. Jonathan turned towards the door the Inferi were trying to get through and listened.

More creaking.

Jonathan leaned his upper body back and kicked in the door with his right foot. Splinters and metal went flying as he surged into the room. He saw the chair that was holding the door closed had been sent flying across the room from when he'd kicked in the door. There was a huge gaping hole in the wall to his right.

Sudden movement from the left caught his attention.

Jonathan jerked sideways and out of the path of a charging young man with flaming red hair. Jonathan grabbed the boys neck with his right hand. The red head swung something at Jonathan with his free arm and Jonathan caught it before it came crashing down on his skull. Jonathan looked at the weapon, recognized it as a piece of wood that had broken off the door, before discarding it.

The boys' eyes went wide as he stared into Jonathan's face.

"Let him go!" shouted a girl from the corner.

Jonathan looked at her, registered unruly brown curls and a sharp face, before turning his attention back to the boy.

"He's not one of them!" the girl shouted.

Jonathan looked into the boys' chocolate eyes before releasing him onto the floor. The girl rushed over to her friends body and checked him over.

"Are you alright?" she asked him.

The red head nodded yes and they both looked up at Jonathan.

"Are you an Auror?" the girl asked hopefully.

"With a grip like that," said the boy, "who else could he be?"

Jonathan almost smiled at him.

"I'm not an Auror," he said slowly.

Both the girl and the boy turned pale quick.

"But I'm not a Death Eater either," he finished before one of them tried to attack him again.

"Then who are you?" the girl asked, clearly not eager to trust him.

"An enemy of your enemy," he said quickly.

"My sister," breathed the boy suddenly, "did you see her when you came in?"

Jonathan shook his head.

"We have to find her!" the boy exclaimed, sitting up and struggling to his feet.

Jonathan helped the boy stand and said, "We need to get out of here. Right now."

"She's my sister!"

"Please," the girl said, "we have to find her. We can't just leave her alone out there."

"And I can't leave you alone period," he replied instantly, "there are too many _things_ out there tonight. I can't let you wander through the woods all night while I look for her now can I?"

"We can handle ourselves," declared the boy stubbornly, as he moved towards the doorway, "Come on, Hermione, let's go."

The girl, apparently named after the Shakespearian character, followed instantly.

Jonathan sighed in surrender as the teenagers left his sight and into the darkness of the house. He suddenly remembered just how stubborn kids could be.

"Wait!" he called out.

The pair stopped at the top of the stairs, but didn't turn around to look at him.

"At least let me keep an eye on the two of you while you're looking for her," Jonathan said as he walked towards them.

The teens didn't say a word, they just merely led the way down the steps.

_The Rural Outskirts of Albania_

_The Same Day_

_2:30 am_

"Did you bring me what I need this time?"

Jeffery Maddox smiled to himself as he stepped out of the shadows and into the light of the single burning candle in the cave. He had never once been able sneak up on the old witch… yet.

"Do you have a problem with your hearing or was it your intention to insult me?" the elderly woman snapped crisply.

"There are many things I'd like to do to you, Agatha," He answered with the most sickeningly sweet smile he could muster.

"Watch you tongue!" she warned him sharply.

Maddox said nothing. Instead he walked to the table that held the single candle and deposited a brown satchel on its surface.

"It should all be there."

"It had better."

The old witch stepped closer to the table and removed the strings binding the satchel with a single thought. From it fell a handful of items but only one seemed to interest the witch the most: a kattana sword with a handle wrapped in lavender strings. She lifted up the blade as if it were holy and moved it closer to the light.

"It belongs to the girl?"

"No."

The witch looked up quickly at Maddox with a questioning glance.

Maddox smiled back, "It _belonged_ to her."

The witch glared at him before shifting her eyes back to the blade in her hands. She turned the sword over carefully in her hands as if memorizing every detail of it. Finally she returned the sword to the table and faced Maddox.

"It can be done."

Maddox nodded once and then asked, "How soon?"

"We can begin today if you're up for it," she answered.

"Check with your cards first," he ordered, "I don't want anything going wrong."

The elderly witch smiled at him slowly and then nodded, "As you wish."

The cave they were standing in began to glow and shake. Neither the witch nor Maddox showed any obvious signs of panic as the cave continued to vibrate. Suddenly it stopped and where a portion of the wall had been, there was now a hallway of stone. The witch gathered up the contents of the satchel and marched down the passage without waiting to see whether or not Maddox followed her.

He did anyway.

_The Village of Ottery St. Catchpole_

_The Same Day_

_1:45 am_

Ginny Weasley moaned into the dirt ground around her.

Pain reverberated around her body, especially in her head and her left leg. She twisted upwards into a sitting position and stopped short as a tidal wave of dizziness washed over her, trying to drag her unwillingly into unconsciousness.

"Is _this_ what you were trying to save me from, Harry?" she muttered to herself, instantly regretting the words.

She felt guilty for finally saying out loud all the bitterness that had come from Harry leaving her that day at Dumbledore's funeral. She felt guilty because she had let him walk away without saying half the things that could have made him stay. She felt guilty that he always had to sacrifice himself to save her. She felt guilty, because her one chance at proving that he didn't always have to rescue her had only proved herself wrong.

"Where are you, Harry?" she asked into the darkness, not disappointed at the lack of response.

Ginny glanced at her surroundings and was relieved to see there were no Inferi around.

At least not _now_, she thought to herself.

She gripped hard onto the ground around her and tried to push her weight on her legs. She cried out sharply against the pain in her left leg and fell back to the ground, cradling her own injured body. She breathed in the stale air and then released it, trying to remember that breathing was supposed to help control pain. Right now it was only making her more dizzy.

"Ginny!"

Ginny Weasley jumped at the sound of someone calling her name. It took her a moment to recognize the voice and for once she wasn't annoyed by the sound of her brother.

"Over here!" she called out, the pain momentarily forgotten.

Footsteps pounding against the ground alerted her to the arrival of her brother, Hermione and a man she didn't know. Her level of alertness doubled as the man pushed her brother and Hermione out of the way to reach her first. A wand appeared in the man's hand and her eyes widened in fear. She flinched as he reached her, but to her surprise he didn't hurt her in any way. In fact, he was looking at her injury and waving his wand over it.

Ron and Hermione finally appeared at her side.

"Are you alright?"

"What hurts?"

"What happened?"

"Did they attack you?"

"Have you seen Mom or Dad?"

The questions flew at her a mile a minute and the dizziness was fighting her at the same time.

"Stop!" she cried out, her eyes closing tight and her arms roaming the air for support. Both Ron and Hermione took hold of an arm as she straightened herself out. A hand moved hair from her face and she heard her brother's voice.

"Is she going to be OK?"

She heard a new voice answer. The man with the wand.

"Yeah, a sprained leg with a right nasty cut but she'll be alright."

"Can't you fix it?" asked Hermione.

"I could but I'd need some potions, too," he responded, "I'll try to remove the pain at least, so she can walk on her own."

"Thank you," Ron said quietly, "and, um, sorry about the bashing the skull in thing."

Ginny opened her eyes, alarmed at her brother's apology to the man. To her surprise she heard him chuckle.

"It's alright, as long as you forgive me for the choke grab."

"It's a deal."

"Good," the man smiled before turning all business again, "now let's get the hell out of here."

"What about my Mum and Dad?" Ginny asked.

"They were in the shed last I saw," he answered.

Ginny and Ron smiled.

Hermione noticed and asked, "What?"

"Nothing, it's just…" Ron trailed off.

"It's where they go to, you know, be _alone_," Ginny explained for him.

"They keep the emergency portkey in there that Dumbledore gave them before he died," continued Ron, "There's another in their room but we couldn't get to it."

"Do you think they used it?" asked the stranger.

Ron nodded. "Dad always said to use it if you could get to it."

Jonathan nodded, but wasn't sure whether the parents would have followed their own rules. Judging by the way their son went to save his sister, it didn't seem like the kind of family that went every man for himself. Either way they didn't have much time left. It would be sunrise soon and they'd be easy targets in the daylight. Their only hope was to use the cover of darkness to smuggle themselves through the border of the woods and into the village. He just hoped they didn't run into any of the werewolves out there, because with a team of three teenagers (one injured) not all of them would survive the night.

God help them.

_The Island of Aeolus_

_The Same Day_

_2:30 am_

Harry Potter couldn't remember the last time he'd had so much fun in his life without Ron and Hermione. Harry had been missing them for awhile now. There was still a part of him that felt guilty for being happy without them. He'd never been whole without his two best friends, and he probably wouldn't be alive today without them.

"Problem, Harry?" asked Troy.

Harry turned his head to look at his new friend and smiled to reassure him.

Harry, Troy and all the others were huddled at a magically made campfire surrounded by large boulders upon which each teenager sat. Everyone was rapped in towels that had been magically conjured up by Troy who had already mastered wandless magic. Harry's towel was warm and dry so he hugged it closer to his body and stared more intently at the fire as his mind wandered again. This time he thought about everything that had happened that night and he was still in shock.

There was a feeling of absolute freedom on the Island of Aeolus. There were no prophecies, or Dark Lords, or hidden political agendas to worry about. Here, Harry could be whoever he wanted to be. He didn't have to impress anyone or worry about what Rita Skeeter might put in the Prophet about him. Hell, he'd just gone swimming with almost a dozen, half-naked teenagers in a lagoon on a tropical island! Rita Skeeter would have had a field day with details like that laid out in front of her!

And yet something was still wrong.

He could feel the anxiety burning in the back of his skull. He was missing something, he was needed somewhere, he was _meant_ to be doing something. He just had no idea what, and yet instinctively he felt he was supposed to be doing _something_. He wanted the feeling to die, to disappear and never return. He _liked_ feeling like just an average kid, and he didn't want to trade that for anything.

And still…

"What time is it?" asked Ganesa.

"A little after 2:30," Charlie answered from where he laid completely relaxed on top of the boulder, "why do you ask, Gannie?"

"Just getting a little tired is all."

Charlie sat up, "You want to head back?"

Ganesa shook her head, "I can wait awhile, it's just been a good night, you know?"

If there was one thing about Charlie, that Harry would never have expected to learn, it was that the boy was overprotective of everyone. Well, that's not true. He was overprotective of everyone _but_ Harry. Charlie was the oldest male, and in his mind, that made him in charge and responsible for everyone. Well, except Harry.

"Did you have fun, Harry?" asked Mercedes from her portion of the circle.

Harry nodded and replied, "the best."

"You ever go swimming much up at that school of yours?" asked Troy.

"Hogwarts is surrounded by a lake, Troy," answered Ganesa impatiently, "_everyone_ knows that."

"That doesn't mean he gets to swim in it all the time, like we do here!" responded Troy mildly indignant.

"I've swam here and there," said Harry with a smirk.

Nevada sat up straighter when she saw Harry's face and said laughingly, "Sounds like there's a story there, hey Harry?"

Harry nodded, remembering the second task of the Triwizard Tournament and how Cedric had…

Harry scowled involuntarily.

"What's the matter?" asked Troy.

"Nothing, I just…" Harry trailed off, unsure of how to explain how taxing it was to remember. How thinking of the past was only going to ruin this one perfect night.

"Look, it's got him speechless!" cried Caden, standing next to Charlie's boulder, "now he's got to tell us!"

Harry shook his head, "It's not appropriate."

"Think of it as the next part of the initiation process," suggested Charlie, "You do want to be part of the group don't you?"

Harry swallowed the sarcastic remark on the tip of his tongue, deciding that getting in a fight over the issue was only going to push it into the surface. Instead he settled with, "How many parts of the initiation are there?"

"Four," answered Charlie, as if expecting the question already, "Part one is the hike up here. Part two is the jump from the cliff. Part three is opening your trap and telling a good tale and part four is… well you'll see tomorrow morning."

The group smiled.

Harry suddenly remembered what being backed into a corner felt like.

_The Outskirts of Albania_

_The Same Day_

_2:45 am_

"The cards do not lie, Maddox!" seethed Agatha testily, "especially to me!"

"You said we could start tonight!" he accused her, shaking an angry finger in her face.

"And it was _you_," she stressed his name, "that wanted, no, _demanded_ that we check the cards. But now that the answer wasn't what you wanted, it's all my fault."

Maddox gave a bestial growl and his arm swept across her table, carrying her ancient deck of tarot cards onto the floor of the cave. Agatha sat back ramrod in her chair, as he leaned closer to her over the counter of the table.

"Find. Me. That. Spell. Now."

He spoke each word slowly, deliberately, _dangerously_ so that she would fully comprehend the consequences of not following his orders. She did not move an inch.

"Sit down, Maddox!" she demanded angrily, "and shut up!"

Maddox had a hand on his blade handle and was removing it from it's protective sheath in less than a second. The blade flashed in the candlelight as he maneuvered it over his head and brought it down in a sideways slashing motion.

Agatha lifted her right hand's pointer finger as her only line of defense. To Maddox's surprise only, the blade stopped short against the woman's finger and she smirked into his cold eyes. With a flick of her wrist, she sent Maddox's weapon sailing out of his hand and across the expansive stone room. A second flick and Maddox was propelled backwards into the opposing wall.

This time when she spoke, it was also slow, deliberate and dangerous.

"Do not dare attempt to double-cross a sorceress who's at least a hundred years older than you, Maddox," she said, "or you may not find the consequence to your liking."

She stood from her reading chair and walked across her study to the large bookcase on the far right wall. She paused before it, thinking pensively, before selecting a book from the top shelf. She carried it back to her desk, opened up the book to the correct page and then smiled slyly up at Maddox, who was still crumpled at the base of the cave wall he'd collided with.

"Now," she asked, truly enjoying herself now, "let's see what a man like you is worth to what I am sure is a long list of enemies. I hope for your sake they would prefer to get you alive, but who knows, maybe tonight is my lucky night and _I'll_ get to kill you…"

_Ottery St. Catchpole_

_The Same Day_

_2:40 am_

"Can't we just run for it?" asked Ron impatiently, "I mean it's not like Ginny and I haven't used these woods before."

"Don't you remember what Professor Snape, I mean, _Former _Professor Snape," Hermione corrected herself quickly seeing the angry look on Ron's face, "told us about werewolves in 3rd year?"

Ron shook his head, "I was more worried about how you'd been pulling off the whole 'two classes at once' thing actually."

"Honestly, Ronald," she scolded him, "no wonder you have to keep me around just to keep your head above water."

"Hey!" cried Ron, indignant.

"Star crossed lovers!" cried Ginny with irritation, "you can flirt on someone else's time. I want to get _out_ of here!"

"Werewolves," explained Hermione, "are practiced hunters, most relatable to the ocean hunter, the shark. Both predators don't tire and can smell blood up to a mile away."

"Not to mention the sharp teeth," Ron added under his breath.

"Which is why running won't help us much now," continued Jonathan, "since all of us our bleeding. It'd be like roasting ourselves over an open flame and ringing a dinner bell."

The trio of teens shuddered at the mental image of their own roasted flesh being served as a dinner portion to hungry werewolves.

"So what do we do?" asked Ron worriedly.

"Could we wait them out?" asked Ginny, "You know until the moon goes down?"

"Then we'd have Death Eaters and Inferi to still worry about."

"Should we try to find that spare portkey in mum and dad's room?" suggested Ginny.

"I wouldn't recommend going into such an obvious target."

Everyone went silent in thought.

"How did you get here?" asked Hermione suddenly, that familiarly brilliant mind obviously at work.

"I apparated," explained Jonathan.

"Funny," she responded, "since no one else can."

"Then we'll just have to find another way out of this situation then, won't we?" he asked sweetly but falsely.

Hermione's brow furrowed accusingly, "You already know of another way, don't you?"

Jonathan smiled, "Of course."

Hermione studied him a moment, then mimicked his own false sweetness and said, "Then by all means, lead the way."

_The Outskirts of Albania_

_The Same Day_

_3:00 am_

"Agripula!"

Agatha's commanding voice rang out through the stale cave air.

Vines that seemed so unnatural in the hard sand floor of the cave, sprouted upwards around Jeffrey Maddox's unconscious body. The vines were half a foot thick with spiked thorns surrounding them. They wrapped carnivorously and malevolently around his wrists, arms, waist, neck, shoulders and thighs.

Even more vines erupted from the cave wall from behind the body, pulling the body in a curl against the hard wall. The thickest vine yet wrapped strictly around his stomach and pulled so hard that breath left the man's throat in a tight wheeze.

"It's nothing personal," she continued, as if all this were the most natural thing in the world. Then again, if you'd lived with such tangible magic for as long as she did, you'd think it were just as natural as seeing rain in the spring.

"The money was good, but completely worthless to someone like myself."

She chuckled to herself, "I'm surprised you didn't pick up on that sooner. Pity, you seemed like such a bright young thing. So full of intelligence, and that cold, calculating, heartlessly ambitious personality was just so… _inspiring_."

Agatha turned to face her still unconscious captive and continued as if he should understand and sympathize with all her betraying actions.

"But still you are _young,_ so very young," she stressed the word as a negative, "and that severely impedes your comprehension of one single fact."

She crouched next to his body and sent a single, five inch nail, stroking vertically down his cheek. "The fact that you, and your youthful generation, seem to be missing is this... There is always a bigger shark in the sea, just waiting for a chance to prove it."

Her nail poked into his flesh with such vigor that it drew blood. She smiled at the wound like it was her only child, as if she cherished it more than life itself, and then she licked the blood clean.

Her eyes grew wide and dazed as if she were tipsy from drinking too much wine in one night. In fact, that was _exactly_ how she looked.

"So much power," she muttered into the orange glow of the torches that kept the cave so illuminated.

She stood again and strutted towards her work table, where she'd left her tarot cards spread out in a large semi-circle. She allowed her left hand, the Devil's hand, to graze inches above the face down cards. She felt the different power levels trembling under her hand until she found the one she was looking for. Her mind, body and soul felt the vibrations that reverberated from the card and _through_ her. The feeling had never been this strong before.

Her breathing became slow and shallow as she plucked the card into her long nailed fingers and closed her eyes. She leisurely pulled the card tight against her body and slid it upward, sensuously, to her neck and then to her 'third eye'.

Her eyes squeezed shut even tighter than before as a vision flashed in her mind. She saw herself in this position, the card raised to her forehead, her body tight with pleasure and the sheer power of the vision. She saw her eyes open wide and gasp. But what she saw in her eyes surprised her. They emanated fear and pain that she had never known to exist before that moment. Her pulse raced as her inner eye continued to show her the near future.

In the vision, a figure, Maddox, rose from his chains and stalked towards her. She turned, frightened and tried to run, but it was too late. Her own captive now had the upper hand against her and she knew she was going to die. She knew it with all her heart, and it cried out to her to stop the vision. To run before it all came true, but no matter how hard she struggled to free herself from the prophecies grasp she only managed to entangle herself further within it.

Moments passed in the vision where she could hear the real world around her, and the noises around her were not encouraging. She heard Maddox slowly awaken as her fate was revealed inside of her. She felt the flames burning away the vines that held him, flames she saw roasting her flesh within her own mind. She felt his presence stalk around her, trying to decipher what was holding her so statue like.

She let out a scream of pure terror as her eyes suddenly snapped open, the vision releasing her from its startling grasp. She heard Maddox's footsteps falling behind her, getting nearer and she turned to run. His firm grasp on her arm held her still and he shoved her backwards against the edge of her table, sending it's contents spiraling onto the ground around it. He slapped her hard across the face and took hold of the kattana sword he had brought her.

She cried out in fear as the torches light was reflected in the blade's face. He smiled and slashed out, cutting across her right forearm.

"For my own wound," he reminded her of his own cut.

She gazed at where the wound had once been and her eyes widened as she realized that it had already healed.

"What are you?" she gasped.

"Haven't you figured that out yet?" he smirked at her.

Her gaze left his face and was drawn by some unknown force to the tarot card that had fallen from her grasp and flittered to the floor below. It's picture had a skeleton on it, a skeleton that was on fire, a fire that flowed out of the mouth of a Phoenix bird in the upper right corner of the card.

Her eyes widened as her mind registered the significance of the card that had called out to her and she would have screamed again if she had noticed the sickening smile that spread across Maddox's mouth.

He lunged forward with the sword and just _grazed_ the surface of her left eye, white puss trickling down from it. He slashed again to equally blind the other eye, and his smile widened as she cried out in pain again and again, clutching her eyes.

He left the sword on the table and grabbed her grey mop of hair and slammed her down against the table. A bright purple wound appeared on the top corner of her face. He took his time, savoring the moments of his revenge, as he slowly tortured her for information. As he slowly forced the truth about who had ordered her to set him up, and what their plans were for him. He took his time when he removed one of her fingers every hour with his small dagger. Then he moved onto the toes, followed by her wrists, her scalp, her ears and finally let her bleed out with the removal of her cold, shriveled heart. He lifted it up in his right hand, called on his Phoenix Fire to light it on fire, and let her die smelling the burning of her own wicked heart.

Jeffery Maddox was not a man who allowed his betrayers to live.

Jeffery Maddox was not a man to be crossed.

Jeffery Maddox was not a man one should try to remove unless they, too, were willing to risk their own lives to kill him.

Jeffery Maddox was not a man who should be underestimated.

And now, thanks to his _work_ on Agatha, the men who had sent her after him would understand that.

And if they didn't, well, then there was always Jonathan to show them just how merciless he really could be. For what he had in mind for Jonathan, and everyone the man had ever met, would make Eliza and Agatha's fates look almost peaceful in comparison.

"_Goodbye, Agatha…"_

Maddox smiled at the thought and disappeared in a flash of blinding flames.

_The Woods beyond the Burrow_

_The Same Day_

_3:00 am_

"What in the name of Merlin," asked Ginny, in an awed sounding voice, "is that?"

She pointed her outstretched hand towards the wooden area in front of them.

Jonathan's eyes tracked forward in the direction of her own gaze. He saw that the morning mist was glowing a faint green from the emerald barrier the Dark Lord had constructed. He hadn't known the barrier extended into the woods of the property behind the home, he just hoped he'd be able to get them all through.

"You'll see soon enough," was Jonathan's short reply. He was both physically and magically drained enough for one evening, to have to answer more questions would only lesson his capability.

"How's your leg feeling, Ginny?" asked Hermione, worriedly.

The girl frowned and placed more weight on the leg without wincing. She shrugged and said, "Won't really know until the spell wears off, right?"

Ron turned to her, "Just stay off it as much as possible."

"Are you offering to carry me the rest of the way?" she returned, smirking.

Ron scoffed, "Of course not."

Ginny smiled slightly, the light sibling humor lowering some of the tension in her gut. Hermione didn't look pleased with the lack of seriousness for the situation, but she stayed quiet. Whether it was out of fear or good conscious Ginny didn't know, but either way she was thankful that Hermione let the joke go.

"We're almost there," commented Jonathan.

At first Ginny didn't know _how _he knew how close they were, but then she saw the mist. It was an even brighter green than before, thicker even. Far ahead she saw a bright emerald light stretching high towards the tree tops and beyond.

"My God," breathed Hermione, looking upward, trying to determine where exactly the wall of green actually ended.

"Is anyone else worried about the color of that wall?" asked Ron worriedly.

"Killing Curse green," nodded Ginny.

"Voldemort put up the barrier right after I got there," explained Jonathan, pleased they were catching on so quickly.

"Wait," interrupted Hermione, looking confused, "How do you expect us to get out of here? I'm guessing if we go through that wall, we die, right?"

Jonathan nodded and said, "Correct."

"Then how the hell are we supposed to get out?" demanded Ron.

"I know a spell of sorts," lied Jonathan, "that dispels dark curses like this one."

Hermione's eyes narrowed, as she tried looking into her own mental encyclopedia of spells, desperately attempting to think of the one he was talking about.

Jonathan hated to lie at such a crucial moment, but he didn't have the time to explain about his Phoenix capabilities even if he wanted to.

"There is no spell that can beat the Killing Curse!" exclaimed a frustrated Hermione.

A howl erupted from the dark woods behind them.

As one, the quartet looked behind them towards the origin of the sound.

Jonathan turned back to face them, looked directly at Hermione, and asked, "Want to take the time to debate the issue?"

Hermione shook her head nervously.

Jonathan nodded and said, "Then let's keep moving."

"Yeah," added Ron, "and _much_ much faster, too."

A second howl came from the woods to their right, and everyone continued to increase their pace until it was an all out run. When Jonathan estimated that there were only fifteen feet left between them and the barrier he began to summon Phoenix Fire into both of his hands. By the time they'd reached the wall the Phoenix Fire had moved up the lengths of his arms to his shoulders.

Ginny, Ron and Hermione skidded to a stop and let Jonathan go in front of them.

Jonathan placed both his hands against the massive barrier and allowed it to soak up the Phoenix Fire. The two mixed together and formed a liquid looking purple color.

"I thought it would burn a hole through it or something!" cried Ron nervously.

"Yeah," said Jonathan, studying the purple area, "me too."

"It looks wet like," commented Ginny, looking around.

"Maybe we have to walk through it," suggested Hermione.

"Oh, sure," said Ron sarcastically, "and if you're wrong we just die, that's all."

"She's got a good idea," Jonathan said suddenly.

"Well, if you think it's such a good idea, than _you _go first!" Ron suggested smartly.

"Shut up, Ron!" hissed Ginny, positioning herself closer to her brother. "Do you want to make it any easier for them to find us!"

"Be quiet both of you!" ordered Jonathan.

The trio turned to look at him as he returned his gaze to the purple section of the green wall in front of him. He took a deep breath and raised his arm, inching it closer and closer to the pulsating purple. His fingertips feathered the purple surface and he heard the breathing behind him stop in anticipation.

The substance was thicker than he thought, like old fashioned Jello or something.

Jonathan curled his hand into a fist and punched forward slowly through the substance. The front of his body was past the perimeter and he was already forced to hold his breath. He made an effort to run through the substance and within seconds he was on the other side of the wall.

He took a deep breath before standing up straight and looking back at the pale faces on the other side of the opaque green structure. He waved to the trio to come through like he did and watched bemused as they played rock-paper-scissors for who had to go first. Hermione lost since she was the first of the three to come through the wall. Ginny was next but couldn't seem to push herself through the whole way.

Jonathan and Hermione each reached in and grabbed one of her outstretched hands to pull her through. She immediately fell to the ground after reaching their side of the wall, where she gasped for air. Now it was Ron's turn.

"Where's he going?" asked Hermione terrified.

Jonathan tore his gaze away from Ginny, who was still on the ground, and looked back through the wall for the red head.

Ron was no longer looking at them, but back towards his home.

"What's he doing?" asked Ginny, having finally caught her breath.

"I don't know."

"Why isn't he coming through?" asked Hermione.

"I don't know," repeated Jonathan sternly.

The girls fell silent.

Ron was waving something to them and then turning away, running back through the woods and away from them.

"What the hell?" muttered Jonathan.

"We have to go back for him!" cried Ginny at once.

"No," responded Jonathan at once.

"What?" shrieked Hermione in disbelief.

"_I'll_ go back for him," he clarified, "you two will stay here."

The girls looked at each other but he was already maneuvering through the purple portion of the barrier before either could protest. A hand reached out from behind him and grabbed him forcefully; a second joined him and together they wrestled him backwards. He fell out of the barrier and turned angrily towards them.

"What the hell do you think your doing?" he demanded of them.

"Just look!" Hermione shouted at him, pointing over his shoulder to the other side of the barrier.

Two figures loomed out of the shadows, stalking low over the ground, almost _sniffing_ it.

"Werewolves," he breathed.

"If you'd gone through they would have gotten to you," explained Ginny.

"We thought…"

The words died in Hermione's throat as the wolves' sudden movements drew their attention.

Jonathan's eyes narrowed as both beasts's snouts were raised to the air, and then suddenly they flashed in the direction of the house. In the direction of where Ron had run. The wolves dashed out of their eyesight, chasing after Ron's scent.

"Is that why he ran?" asked Ginny, "because he saw them?"

"No," answered Hermione, "he'd have run through the barrier instead."

"I'm going after him again," declared Jonathan, "You two…"

"…stay here," finished the girls in unison.

He smiled, "right."

He forced his way through the barrier and his smile disappeared as he felt the air hit the surface of his face again. Instead, his smile was replaced by a grim and determined expression. He raced into the woods and out of sight, hoping against all hopes that he found Ron before the wolves did.

In the shadows on the far right of the emerald barrier a third wolf silently appeared. It growled, flashing its blood stained teeth in the moonlight. It's furry eyes narrowed at it's prey and was about to charge after it when a new wind carried a more satisfying scent to its nostrils. The beasts eyes widened and turned to look at the other side of the barrier, specifically where it was stained purple and the man had emerged.

There were two young girls on the other side. Alone. Fearful. Prey.

_The Village of Ottery St. Catchpole_

_The Same Day_

_3:45 am_

Charlie never saw the curse coming.

"_Fucking DE's never play fair," he thought to himself._

The curse struck his left side hard, sending him sprawling onto the ground.

The Death Eater he had been facing off against wasted no time in sending a Killing Curse at him. He pushed himself up and off the ground before the curse struck and instead he came face to face with a second curse sent by the other Death Eater that knocked him down again.

Charlie spit out blood onto his shirt and raised his wand shouting, "Creteo!"

The second Death Eater spun wildly after the curse struck him before collapsing onto the ground. The original Death Eater sent a curse at his fellow fighter and the man slowly regained consciousness. Charlie sensed danger at the fact that these Death Eaters were working together. Most of the time Death Eaters were taught to help number one, and number one alone. But these two worked _together_, a lesson most Death Eaters found weakening.

Charlie took cover behind a broke down automobile that a Death Eater had lit on fire. This time two Killing Curses sailed over his head and created a large crater in the building behind him. A ministry Auror who had been called in as backup joined him behind the car.

At least now the fight would be two on two and not two on one.

On the other side of the building another Order member was taking on an equally challenging opponent.

Nymphadora Tonks had been trying to follow Minerva's instructions and establish some kind of perimeter when she had spied Bellatrix Lestrange emerging from the forest road. Tonks had intercepted her and as a result she was now facing the business end of Bellatrix's wand.

"You stupid, bitch," she screamed in Tonks' face, "Am I going to have to kill every one of my disappointing cousins."

Tonks flinched in her cruel reminder of Sirius's death.

"Oh, did that hurt, Nymphadora?" Bellatrix whispered into the woman's face, bending low to do so.

Nymphadora took her chance and landed an uppercut against Bellatrix's chin that had been positioned _oh so_ perfectly in front of her.

Bellatrix stumbled backwards but remained standing, and Tonks' Auror training kicked in immediately. She pushed her legs out in front of her, scissored the other woman's legs and twisted so she fell face forward into the muddy road.

The wand went flying and Tonks chased after it.

Bellatrix cried out and gripped a piece of rubble like a baseball before launching it at the back of Tonks' head. The rubble made contact and Tonks was now the one sprawled on the ground.

Ahead of her Tonks was momentarily distracted by the sight of her Remus battling a fully changed werewolf with only Bill as backup. A scream left her lips as pain shot through her left shoulder. She turned on her back and felt the pain intensify.

Bellatrix had taken Tonks' momentary disorientation and had shoved a knife through her shoulder. Bellatrix kicked her side hard and Tonks fell back onto her front. She felt the knife being twisted in her shoulder, scrape bone and then being pulled out of her.

For the first time that night Tonks felt as if she really were going to die, and there was nothing she could do about it.

_The Woods beyond the Burrow_

_The Same Day_

_3:30 am_

"Did you hear that?"

Ginny turned to face Hermione. So far they'd been waiting for Jonathan to bring Ron back through the Killing Curse barrier for at least ten minutes if not more. They could feel the beginning of the morning to pull on their weary limbs. Both could see clearer now that the mist was receding and the world getting brighter.

"Hear what?" asked Ginny.

A short snort and a howl came from somewhere near the barrier.

"That," breathed Hermione shortly.

Both girls turned slowly towards the purple section of the barrier and gasped in horror. The unmistakably low to the ground shadow of a werewolf was crouched and sniffing at the purple portion. Slowly, ever so slowly, it pushed its long nostril into the fragment and pulled it back. It barked satisfied and howled at the moon.

"It's coming through!" Hermione shouted.

"Yeah, I see that thanks," muttered Ginny, looking around for a place to run or hide, "Hermione help me look for somewhere to run to."

"You live here, not me!" she pointed out frantically.

"The trees!"

Both girls looked back at the barrier and saw that the werewolf was already halfway through.

Ginny scrambled up the nearest tree trunk and lifted herself to the first branch. When she didn't hear Hermione's feet scraping the wood behind her, she turned and called out for her.

"I'm down here!"

Ginny looked back to the ground and nearly cried out in frustration at Hermione still on the ground.

"Get the hell up here," she seethed, "_now!_"

"I can't!" cried Hermione, "I don't know how to climb trees!"

"Just grip and pull, damn it!"

Hermione looked back at the barrier where a snout was now visible at the opening of the passageway.

"I have a thing about heights! Why do you think I hate flying so much?"

Ginny groped her way back to the trunk, saying, "Well you better like dying a whole lot more if you don't get your arse up here, now!"

Hermione looked back at the barrier and saw that only the hind legs were still inside the barrier. It took no more motivation before she was heaving herself onto the trunk and grasping Ginny's outstretched hands. Ginny wrapped her legs around the large branch and used it as leverage to pull Hermione up.

Teeth snapped into the air below Hermione as she was pulled onto the tree branch just in time to avoid meeting the teeth up close and personal.

"We have to go higher," ordered Ginny, seeing the werewolf already trying to pull itself onto the tree with its razor sharp claws.

"Higher?" Hermione squeaked.

Ginny didn't reply except for climbing onto the next tree branch. Her father had magically enlarged the trees and their limbs in order to create more privacy for their mini-Quidditch field and magically held together home. After all, they couldn't afford for the muggles in the village below to see them flying around on brooms, could they?

Ginny had to help Hermione most of the way up until they were at least twenty five feet off the ground and the branched could still support them.

"Do you think we're safe?" Ginny asked.

"As long as he doesn't transform," Hermione answered Ginny's question.

"They can do that?" Ginny asked startled and surprised.

Hermione blinked at her and pointed to the sky above, "Not a full moon tonight."

There was screaming coming from below them. A _male_ voice screaming.

"Ron!" cried Ginny, already starting to climb down.

This time it was Hermione who took charge, "No, wait!"

Ginny stopped her descent to look at Hermione, desperately questioning.

"That's not Ron, it's _him,"_ Hermione clarified, "it's the _werewolf_."

There were more screams and then the tree began to shake as someone started to climb it. Someone with a powerful grip and even more powerful determination.

Ginny and Hermione's eyes widened in fear.

It was finally time for fight or flight, and so far flight wasn't working out so well…

_The Village of Ottery St. Catchpole_

_The Same Day_

_3:50 am_

Remus wondered briefly exactly _who_ it was he was fighting, before the werewolf clawed at him again.

It had been Remus's responsibility to help Bill with his newly acquired werewolf abilities. And what better way was there to learn than through experience, right?

At least Bill had been willing to jump in the fight right away, but what else would one expect from a former dragon tamer, right?

Another attack, this time from behind, nearly knocked him over.

He saw the werewolf trying to corner Bill again and he used his wand to distract him. Remus was a person of quiet determination and subtle action, that was the only way he'd found the peace to control his transformations since Severus had switched sides for definite and no longer provided his monthly Wolfsbane Potion.

Bill, on the other hand, was a man of direct contact and gut based reactions. It was getting harder and harder for the young man to control his strengths, and currently his adrenaline was pushing him for direct contact. So the flames Remus conjured to draw the werewolf away, was also meant as a means to shock Bill into his more human consciousness instead of bestial.

Bill nodded at Remus slightly, to show that he understood the man's motivations, before returning to the fight.

There was a scream behind him and Remus instantly recognized it as his own Nymphadora's cries.

He turned and saw Bellatrix standing over her, a knife drawn. It plunged downward and suddenly a cold draft of air filled his stomach like ice. His world went dizzy and every peaceful fiber in his body was extinguished in an instant.

He turned quickly and his wand transformed into a long silver sword. The werewolf charged at him and blood littered the ground in torrents. Remus wasted no time in checking if the beast was still alive, as long as he'd wounded it than Bill could take care of the rest.

He raced down the street, wand returning to its original state, and he plowed head first into the woman who'd killed his best friend. He landed next to her and she kicked him in the face. Unfortunately for her, he was the only one between the two who still had a wand. He brandished it quickly and cursed her into a magical stillness.

He flipped Tonks over and did his best to heal her wounded shoulder.

He looked back up the street to Bill, and he saw that the werewolf had transformed back to his human state and was bleeding to death. Bill was trying to mend the wounds that Remus had inflicted but frankly, at that moment, neither of them cared much what happened to the Death Eater werewolf.

A curse was shouted into the night air, boosted by the use of a sonorous charm, and the Dark Mark appeared into the sky at the same moment the dawn light overcame the mountains. What had once been a terrified town under siege in the middle of the night was now a battle destroyed town whose wounds were bleeding in the dawn's new light.

There was the sound of Death Eaters popping out of the town to regroup at Voldemort's layers. Screams of pain and loss were beginning to sound from various points around the attack area. The green barrier that had once been blocking their route to the Burrow had disappeared and only the Aurors and Order members were left behind.

Remus turned back towards Bellatrix and swore when he saw that she, too, had been taken to safety with her fellow comrades.

"It's alright," Tonks said silently into his ear, "we'll get her next time."

"There shouldn't have been a next time."

She rolled her eyes, despite the pain, and he helped her to a standing position. She had to lean heavily against him and Bill on their way back to the regrouping area.

"Do you think they're still alive up there?" Bill asked Remus, afraid of what the answer might be.

"We don't even know whose alive down here," said Moody, joining them from a side street on their way to the gathering point.

"We'll were about to find out," muttered Remus, spotting Minerva just ahead of them talking with several ministry personnel.

One thing was for certain, the woman was not pleased with whatever had gone down that night…

**Author's Notes:**

**Chapter 5: "Blood, Sweat and Tears" is coming soon to a website near you.**

**Sorry about the long wait on this one but once my school exams are over, the updates will be much more frequent. This will also be the last chapter with a lot of action in it, but I'm sure you'll be pleased to know that the various plot bunnies that we're drowning in will progress. Just a reminder that my yahoo group gets these chapters faster than and reviews really do help.**

**Also, in case you hadn't noticed, _everyone's_ expendable in this series. So, yes, this is the last warning I'm giving on Character Death. **

**You. Have. Been. Warned.**

**Until next time,**

**U-No-Poo**


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